March, 27 2005	Sunday	16 Safar 1426

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KABUL, March 26: Four US soldiers were killed in an explosion in the southeastern Afghan province of Logar on Saturday morning when their vehicle convoy ran over a mine as they were surveying the area with Afghan soldiers, the US military said. “Four US troops were killed in action but we have no indication that this was a new mine or an IED (improvised explosive device),” US military spokeswoman Cindy Moore told AFP. She said the bodies of the US troops had already been evacuated from the area and an investigation was ongoing to determine the cause of the explosion, which occurred 40km southwest of Kabul.“The four soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a mine, as they were moving in a three-vehicle convoy on a joint mission with the Afghan National Army,” Ms Moore said.The patrol was surveying for a weapons range and they had been in the area a week and a half, she added.

The blast, which Afghan intelligence sources said occurred in Mohammed Agha district in the Shikar Qala area of Logar could have been the result of unexploded ordnance as Afghanistan is littered with old mines after a quarter century of war.

Saturday’s explosion brings to seven the number of US soldiers killed so far this year in Afghanistan.

After a lull in violence during Afghanistan’s bitterest winter for more a decade, attacks have begun to pick up as the weather warms.

The Afghan government is spearheading an arms-for-amnesty offer for Taliban fighters who have been waging an insurgency since the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001.—AFP