KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - A roadside bomb struck a U.S. convoy in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, killing three American troops, while a motorcycle bomb in a crowded village market killed at least three Afghan civilians, officials said.
NATO spokesman Col. Thomas Collins said the blast hit the American convoy in the Zhari district of Kandahar province, the spiritual heartland of the Taliban and one of the most volatile regions in Afghanistan.
Collins originally said four US troops were killed in the blast, but Capt. Luca Carniel later said NATO had revised the death toll to three US service members.
The attack follows a truck bombing a day earlier on a NATO outpost in Helmand province that killed three Georgian soldiers. So far this year, 58 international service troops have been killed in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press count. Of that tally, 44 are U.S. service members.
Earlier Tuesday, a bomb hidden in a parked motorcycle ripped through a packed market in the village of Safar in Helmand, according to Omer Zawak, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Three people were killed and seven were wounded in the blast, he said.
Four children were among the wounded, two critically, police spokesman Shah Mahmood Hashna said.