3 US soldiers, 18 Afghans killed in suicide attack

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber killed 21 people including three U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint in a packed market in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday — the third assault targeting Americans in as many days.

The daily violence is threatening to undermine international hopes of an orderly handover to Afghan forces at the end of 2014. Although American officials stress successes in establishing pockets of governance in some areas, the east and south continue to be plagued by regular attacks and clashes.

Wednesday’s attack took place in a marketplace in the city of Khost, near the Pakistani border and about 90 miles southeast of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The assailant approached on foot through the shops and taxi stands packed with people and then detonated his explosives as he approached Afghan and U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint, said Baryalai Wakman, a spokesman for the Khost provincial government.

Three U.S. soldiers and an Afghan interpreter were killed, according to American officials. A convoy in the area responded to the attack, said Maj. Martyn Crighton, a spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Besides the interpreter, 17 Afghans also were killed, according to the Afghan president’s office. Two were police officers and the rest were civilians, Wakman said. Another 32 people were wounded — all civilians, he said.

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spelchek 12 months ago

Pull our troops out and make a parking lot out of the region via ICBM. These freaks want to be in the stone age, die for Allah to receive virgins, let's oblige them.

JCLifer 12 months ago

Wish the news media would do a better job of reporting the deaths and injuries. All these kids getting slaughtered every day, and no one seems to know what is really going on with our servicepersons' lives and our tax dollars over in those barbaric backwards places.

I agree with Spelchek. If we are doing anything over there, it ought to be testing neutron bombs over the entire region.

Sequoia 12 months ago

Bring back the draft. It will make it a lot harder for defense contractors, and the think tanks they fund, to gin up wars so that they can get no-bid contract handouts from our taxpayers.

All these dumb "bomb them back to the stone age" types won't be so gung ho when it is their own children heading into a doomed bloodbath.

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