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CHARIKAR: A suicide attack in Afghanistan's Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul, killed five foreign soldiers on Wednesday and wounded several Afghans, the Nato-led force and an Afghan official said.
“An insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan has resulted in the deaths of five ISAF service members,” the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in an SMS message.
Abdul Hakim, the district governor of Tagab in Kapisa province, said earlier three foreign soldiers had been killed in the attack, and two Afghan civilians and a policeman had also been wounded.
An ISAF spokesman had also earlier confirmed there had been an insurgent attack in Kapisa causing foreign casualties but declined to give details on the incident or on the nationality of the soldiers.
Most foreign troops based in Tagab, some 50 km (30 miles) outside the Afghan capital, are French.
District governor Hakim said the suicide bomber walked up to the soldiers who were standing next to their armoured vehicles before detonating his explosives.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since US-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001. More than 2,500 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan since the war began almost 10 years ago.
The latest deaths come only days after French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Afghanistan where he announced the withdrawal of 1,000 troops by the end of 2012, around a quarter of France’s troop commitment to Afghanistan.
