10 NATO Troops Killed on Deadliest Day This Year for International Forces in Afghanistan

[tekisui]

Source: Canadian Press

KABUL — Ten NATO soldiers, including seven Americans, were killed in separate attacks on the deadliest day of the year for foreign forces in Afghanistan. A U.S. civilian contractor who trains Afghan police also died in a brazen suicide assault.

The bloodshed Monday comes as insurgents step up bombings and other attacks ahead of a major NATO operation in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar that Washington hopes will turn the tide of the nearly nine-year war.

Half the NATO deaths — five Americans — occurred in a single blast in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks said without giving further details. It was a grim reminder the insurgents can strike throughout the country — not simply in the south, which has become the main focus of the U.S. campaign.

Two other U.S. troops were killed in separate attacks in the south — one in a bombing and the other by small arms fire.

NATO said three other service members were killed in attacks in the east and south but gave no further details. The French government announced one of the victims was a sergeant in the French Foreign Legion killed by a rocket in Kapisa province northeast of Kabul. Three other Legionnaires were wounded.

The American police trainer and a Nepalese security guard were killed when a team of three suicide bombers attacked the main gates of the police training centre in the southern city of Kandahar, U.S. officials said.

more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jBy0TnpbibPie3giQhyKUtFlz7eQ

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Seems to me "Taliban stronghold of Kandahar " was conquered

on the very outset of this war. Mission Accomplished?