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Bomb kills four US soldiers in Afghanistan
Kabul (AFP) Oct 16, 2009 NATO said Friday a roadside bomb had killed four US soldiers in Afghanistan, as pressure mounted for President Barack Obama to order thousands more soldiers into an escalating eight-year war. "Two US service members were killed and two died of wounds sustained in a single improvised explosive device attack in southern Afghanistan October 15," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. No further details were immediately available but thousands of US troops are fighting in southern Afghanistan as part of a push to quell a resurgent Taliban in what is their spiritual heartland. The latest military deaths come as Obama debates whether to send thousands of additional troops to the impoverished country on top of 21,000 extra forces he committed after taking office this year. In a grim assessment of a war with military casualties at record levels, the commander of the 100,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has reportedly asked Obama for 40,000 extra troops. ISAF's commander in southern Afghanistan, Dutch Major General Mart de Kruif, told AFP in an interview Thursday that he wanted 10,000 to 15,000 more troops, including support units, to ensure security in the region. He also called for more Afghan army and police, plus civilian workers, to help development and reconstruction projects. Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs -- homemade, cheap and difficult to detect -- have become the Taliban's weapon of choice against foreign troops. An AFP toll based on a tally by the independent website icasualties.org puts foreign military fatalities this year at 414 -- the bloodiest year since US-led operations to oust the Taliban regime began in late 2001. The US president is expected to unveil a new strategy within weeks to contain an insurgency fuelled by Al-Qaeda militants and the Taliban, which is resurgent eight years after US-led troops ousted them from power. Obama has said the top goal of any new policy would be consistent with current US aims -- rooting out Al-Qaeda and its "extremist allies". Compounding the military difficulties is speculation that Afghan President Hamid Karzai could be forced into a run-off if he is shown not to have secured an outright majority at elections in August scarred by fraud allegations. A fraud probe has trimmed Karzai's vote share to just 47 percent, The Washington Post said Friday. The Independent Election Commission gave Karzai 54.6 percent in its preliminary results, enough to secure him a second five-year term. Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, Said Tayeb Jawad, conceded for the first time that the disputed results put Karzai and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah on course for a run-off. But Karzai will likely emerge the winner even if there is a run-off, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, adding he would probably be close to an outright victory. "So I think one can conclude that the likelihood of him winning a second round is probably pretty high," she told CNN. Meanwhile, in Denmark, the military announced its troops killed a child and injured two civilians in Afghanistan during clashes with Taliban fighters in the southern Helmand province on Monday. The fighting, between a Danish motorised patrol and a group of insurgents, took place at a time when the military said there was no sign of a civilian presence. Separately, ISAF said two civilians had lost their lives during a joint operation with Afghan police that killed a number of militants suspected of mounting attacks in the eastern province of Ghazni. "During the operation, as militants attacked the joint force, a woman and school-aged girl were accidentally killed in the crossfire," the statement said. It added: "It is unclear if the enemy militants or the joint force are responsible for the deaths." Civilian casualties at the hands of foreign operations are a major source of friction between Western militaries and the Afghan government. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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