Suicide attacks wreak havoc in Afghanistan

Scores of people were injured in the fighting in Khost, the site of a large US military base. The wounded included at least three US soldiers.

The assault was reminiscent of an earlier attack on the American base, Camp Salerno, in which militants used multiple suicide bombers. This one, however, was aimed at softer targets: the governor's compound, the police headquarters, and a municipality building.

At one point, the assailants seized about 20 city employees as hostages, but they were later freed. Residents of the city, which lies close to the Pakistani border, hid in their homes as gunfire rang out for hours.

The Khost attack was a sign of insurgents' growing ability to stage sophisticated, multipronged attacks. Militants in the eastern part of the country are thought to have better access to training in Pakistan's tribal areas, a haven for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. At least one of the suicide bombers was disguised in a burka, the enveloping veil worn by many Afghan women. Insurgents also apparently laid an ambush for a rescue team that came from the American base.

A US military spokesman said the Khost governor's compound was hit by a trio of suicide attacks, but the assailants were unable to penetrate the installation. They did manage to force their way inside a nearby municipal building.

The surge in fighting across Afghanistan has coincided with a spike in civilian casualties caused during clashes between coalition troops and insurgents. Yesterday, an Afghan government commission asserted that 140 civilians had been killed in a battle last week in Farah Province, in western Afghanistan. The US military has acknowledged bombing the area but said it did not believe all the casualties were caused by the bombardment.

If the Afghan count is correct, the incident would be the most lethal of its kind since the war began in 2001.

"This was an accident, and we offer condolences," provincial governor Rohul Amin told a somber assemblage of villagers who trekked to the provincial capital to receive condolence payments from the Afghan government. Relatives received a payment of about $2,000 for family members killed and $1,000 for those injured.

"It doesn't make the pain in my heart go away," said Abdul Farahi, a trucker whose brother and two nephews were killed and whose wife was seriously burned. "We all have to leave this earth, but this cannot be explained."

The US military has said it believes the number of civilians killed was much lower than 140. Twenty-five militants were also killed in the fighting, according to the commission, which was appointed by President Hamid Karzai.

The Afghan president, who visited Washington, D.C., last week, has been critical of foreign forces over repeated instances of civilian casualties. He has called for an end to air strikes by Western troops, a demand that US officials have rejected.

The Taliban, meanwhile, yesterday mocked the ousted US commander in Afghanistan, Army General David D. McKiernan, who was replaced a day earlier by Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal. The move was interpreted as reflecting dissatisfaction by the Obama administration over the course of the conflict.

The change in command comes as more than 21,000 additional American troops have begun arriving. Most will be deployed in the south, the center of the insurgency.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, reached by telephone, said the decision showed that American officials knew they were losing the war. Afghan officials said the appointment was an internal US matter but expressed hopes that it would bring about a reduction in civilian casualties.