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Central & South Asia
Taliban stages multiple attacks
Afghanistan's Taliban announces it has prepared thousands of suicide bombers.
Last Modified: 13 Mar 2007 12:27 GMT
No Nato troops were harmed in one of  the suicide attacks on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border [AFP]

Three Taliban bombers have killed themselves along with a policeman and an Afghan civilian - wounding a dozen people in separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, officials have said.

   

In Spin Boldak, a town on the Pakistani border, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police post, killing a policeman and a bystander.
 
"The man entered from the Pakistani side and blew himself up as police tried to search him," Abdul Razzaq, chief of the border security force, said.

He said eight people were wounded in the attack.

 

There were two further attacks in Lashkar Gah, capital of the southern province of Helmand. In both cases the bombers killed themselves but no one else.

   

One attacker targeted a Nato convoy, but wounded two Afghan bystanders, according to Mohammad Isa Iftikhari, the deputy police chief of Helmand.

 

In the other attack, on an Afghan army office in the provincial capital, a soldier was wounded.

   

Last year saw the worst violence in Afghanistan since the Taliban was chased from power by US-led forces in late 2001.

   

More than 4,000 people died in fighting in 2006, including about 1,000 civilians. Suicide bombings jumped from 21 to 139.

   

Fighting is expected to be heavy in 2007 as the Taliban has announced it has prepared thousands of suicide bombers.

   

Ronald Neumann, the US ambassador to Kabul, said on Monday that US-led forces were fully capable of repelling the Taliban's spring offensive as circumstances are now less favourable for the fighters.

   

Nato and Afghan troops last week launched their biggest operation so far to pre-empt the Taliban's spring offensive.
Source:
Agencies
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