6-afghan-troops-AP-670
Soldiers from the Afghan army. — Photo by AP/File

ASAD ABAD, Afghanistan: Five Afghan army soldiers were killed in an insurgent roadside bombing and suicide attack in an eastern Afghanistan militant hotbed, officials said Wednesday.

The soldiers were attacked late Tuesday in Kunar province by a suicide bomber on foot after a smaller explosion caused by a roadside bombing, a tactic that Afghan insurgents use often, the officials said.

“First there was an improvised roadside bombing that hit an army convoy,” Mohammad Amin Tokhi, the Kunar provincial deputy governor, told AFP.

“Some of the soldiers got out of their vehicles to check it out. A suicide bomber ran at them and detonated. Five of our soldiers were martyred and another was wounded.”

The incident took place in Manogai district, a hotspot of the Taliban insurgency.

Dozens of the militants were killed in a Nato airstrike in the region earlier this month, the deputy governor said.

Mohammad Daud Barakzai, the Kunar deputy police chief, confirmed the Afghan army casualties and blamed the Taliban for the attack.

Afghanistan is plagued by an insurgency waged by the remnants of the Taliban, a group that ruled the war-shattered nation between 1996 and 2001 before being ousted in a US-led invasion.

Nato has some 130,000 troops in the country fighting the insurgency but they are due to withdraw in 2014 and Afghan forces are taking increasing casualties as they assume more responsibility for security.

Opinion

Editorial

More desecration
Updated 27 Sep, 2023

More desecration

Attacks on the Islamic faith are not motivated by an attachment to free speech but by raw hatred.
Worrying remarks
27 Sep, 2023

Worrying remarks

THESE are ominous words from Gwadar. Maulana Hidayatur Rehman, chairman of the Gwadar Haq Do Tehreek, has warned ...
Justice or vendetta?
Updated 27 Sep, 2023

Justice or vendetta?

ONE wonders whether all pretence of the state as a democracy has been whittled down to a point where it has simply...
Free and fair?
Updated 26 Sep, 2023

Free and fair?

It is disingenuous to suggest the fairness of any polling exercise should be considered without regard to all that has preceded it.
Unto darkness
26 Sep, 2023

Unto darkness

YET another case of medical malpractice has come to light in Punjab. The eyesight of several diabetic patients has...
Unions on campus
26 Sep, 2023

Unions on campus

DEPOLITICISED youth unfamiliar with democratic norms cannot be good for the future of representative rule in...