US soldier killed, 2 hurt in Afghanistan bombing
KABUL, Afghanistan -- An American soldier was killed yesterday and two were wounded when a bomb exploded near their patrol in southern Afghanistan, while warplanes pounded militants holed up in mountain caves nearby.
Taliban militants, meanwhile, killed two policemen south of the capital and threw a grenade at a relief group in the northwest -- signs that violence is spreading ahead of historic national elections in September.
The attack on the US soldiers occurred when a bomb hit their Humvee near Deh Rawood, about 250 miles southwest of the capital in the violent southern province of Uruzgan, spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Michele DeWerth said.
She said all three were flown to Kandahar Air Field Hospital, where one soldier died. She would not provide further details.
Uruzgan Governor Jan Mohammed Khan said US forces had surrounded the area of the explosion and were not allowing Afghan troops in.
The death brought the total number of American service personnel who have died in and around Afghanistan since the start of the US war on terrorism to at least 91, including 54 killed in action.
A mine killed four American special forces on May 29 when they were traveling in a Humvee in neighboring Zabul province, one of the worst American combat losses since the war that drove the Taliban from power in late 2001.
More than 400 people have died in violence across Afghanistan this year, most in the south and east where US and Afghan forces have killed dozens of suspected militants in recent weeks.
The US military has assembled 20,000 troops, its largest-ever force in Afghanistan, in an attempt to prevent rebels from derailing the country's first post-Taliban election.
But there are signs the insurgency is expanding.
The warplanes struck early Sunday near Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan, after US troops had exchanged fire with dozens of militants who sought refuge in the caves, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Tucker Mansager said.
The Americans called in ''air support that dealt with those caves," Mansager said.
He said no US soldiers were hurt in the battle and had no information on casualties among the militants.
The policemen died when Taliban attacked the government office in Kharwar, a remote district of Logar province 50 miles south of Kabul, said General Atiqullah Ludin, a local military commander.
That attack came less than a week after five workers for the medical relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres, including three foreigners, died in northwestern Badghis province. Aid groups worry that relatively secure provinces such as Badghis and Logar will join the south and east in being too dangerous for reconstruction work.
