[NYTr] Afghanistan Violence at Record Levels

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP - Oct 2, 2007
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHANISTAN?SITE=TXPLA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Afghan Violence at Record Levels

By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ
Associated Press Writers

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Violence in Afghanistan has spiked to its
highest level since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, with an Associated
Press count of insurgency-related deaths this year surpassing the 5,000
mark and a U.N. report finding that attacks have risen by 20 percent.

A suicide attack Tuesday on a police bus in western Kabul killed 13
officers and civilians, including a woman and her two children who
boarded the vehicle seconds before the explosion.

The bombing, which ripped the roof off the bus, was the second to
target a bus in Kabul in four days. It came as insurgents turned up
attacks against Afghanistan's security forces during a year of record
violence.

A new U.N. report found that while 76 percent of all suicide bombings
in the country have targeted international and Afghan security forces,
143 civilians were killed by those bombs through August. The report,
released in New York last week, also found that Afghanistan has
averaged 550 violent incidents per month this year, up from 425 last
year.

An AP count of insurgency-related deaths, meanwhile, reached 5,086 so
far this year, the most deaths in Afghanistan since the invasion to
topple the Taliban. The AP counted some 4,000 deaths in 2006, based on
reports from Western and Afghan officials.

The AP tally counts more than 3,500 militants among the dead, but also
more than 650 civilians killed either by militant violence or U.S. or
NATO attacks. Almost 180 international soldiers have died in
Afghanistan this year, including 85 Americans, a record pace. Last
year, about 90 U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan.

Insurgents have also launched a record number of suicide attacks - more
than 100 - including two bus bombings in Kabul since Saturday that
killed 43 people between them.

Four children were among the 13 people killed in Tuesday's suicide
attack by a man wearing a pakul - an Afghan hat commonly seen in the
country's north - and a shawl around the upper half of his body called
a chador, said Amin Gul, who owns a metalworking shop next to the blast
site.

"When the bus came, an old man got on, then a woman with two children,
then the guy wearing the chador entered, and then a big boom," said
Gul, who witnessed the attack.

The seats in the front of the bus were covered in blood and small body
parts, and workers washed blood from nearby trees after the attack. Ten
people were wounded in the bombing, Health Minister Mohammad Amin
Fatemi said.

Ahmad Saqi, a 20-year-old mechanic, said he helped put seven people in
vehicles for runs to the hospital, and that several of the wounded had
no legs.

"One woman was holding a baby in her arms, and they were both killed,"
Saqi said. "Half of the woman's face was blown off."

The blast killed eight police, the mother, her baby and another child,
as well as two unaccompanied children who had been heading to a special
school for handicapped students, Fatemi said. The children ranged in
age from 2 to 8.

"The woman's husband is working at the Health Ministry. How do we tell
the father his wife and two kids are dead?" asked Fatemi. "This attack
goes against all of Islam. There is no reason to blow up Muslims,
especially during the holy month of Ramadan. My message to these
people: Please stop killing Muslims."

Tuesday's explosion is the third attack in four months against police
or army buses in Kabul.

On Saturday, a suicide bomber wearing an army uniform blew himself up
in an army bus, killing 30 people. In June, a bomb ripped through a bus
carrying police instructors in Kabul, killing 35 people in the
deadliest insurgent attack since the 2001 invasion.

A coalition soldier was killed by gunfire Tuesday morning while
conducting combat operations in the northeastern province of Kunar.
Three other soldiers were wounded, the coalition said in a statement.
The nationalities of the soldiers weren't provided, but most soldiers
in eastern Afghanistan are American.

Militants in Kunar attacked a border security post, killing three
police, said Zargun Shah Khaliqyar, a spokesman for the provincial
governor. It was not clear if the two incidents in Kunar were related.

Canadian troops in Kandahar shot and killed a 35-year-old man and
wounded a child in what NATO's International Security Assistance Force
called an "accidental discharge" by a weapons system.

The Afghan Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said Afghan and coalition
soldiers battled insurgents in Uruzgan province on Sunday, killing 26
of the militants. There was no way to independently verify the claim.

Associated Press Writer Amir Shah contributed to this report.

© 2007 The Associated Press.