KABUL — Insurgents killed 12 NATO soldiers on Monday, seven of them Americans, military officials said. It was the worst single day for the foreign forces operating in Afghanistan in more than seven months.
The deaths came in five separate attacks in the south and east of the country, according to statements from the International Security Assistance Force, as the NATO force in Afghanistan is known.
In addition, a civilian American security guard was killed Monday, along with another guard whose nationality was not immediately clear, in a suicide attack on the police training center in the southern city of Kandahar.
Five of the American soldiers were killed by a homemade bomb, known as an improvised explosive device, or IED, in eastern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the American military, Lt. Col. Joseph T. Breasseale, confirmed. Two other American soldiers were killed by a bomb in southern Afghanistan, he said.
In addition, statements released by the NATO force said two of its soldiers had been killed in separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, one by small arms fire and another by a bomb, while a third NATO soldier was killed in eastern Afghanistan by small arms fire.
In keeping with its standard practice, the international force did not immediately disclose the nationalities of those soldiers, but they were not American. All names were withheld pending notification of next of kin.
In the attack on the Kandahar police training center on Monday, three suicide bombers struck the gate of the center, one driving a car bomb and the other two apparently with explosive vests, according to a statement by the Afghan Interior Ministry. The only damage they did was to the outer wall of the center's compound, the statement said.
A subsequent statement from the American Embassy said two civilians had been killed in that attack, one of them an American citizen. News reports said the two victims were both employees of an American security company guarding the facility.
The day before, on Sunday, five NATO soldiers died, including three who were killed in a vehicle accident, one who was killed by a homemade bomb in southern Afghanistan and another who was killed by an "insurgent attack" in eastern Afghanistan, according to statements from the NATO force.
The previous worst day for NATO troops was Oct. 26, when 11 Americans died, according to icasualties.org, an independent group that tracks soldier deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.
FORT LEWIS, Wash. (AP) — Five soldiers from the same Washington state-based unit have now been implicated in the killing of three Afghan civilians, an Army spokeswoman said Monday.
The Army said Spc. Jeremy Morlock had been charged with three counts of premeditated murder and one count of assault. A second soldier is being held in confinement in Kuwait, and the others three remain with their unit in Afghanistan.
All are assigned to B Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team.
Soldiers implicated in killings
FORT LEWIS, Wash. (AP) — Five soldiers from the same Washington state-based unit have now been implicated in the killing of three Afghan civilians, an Army spokeswoman said Monday.
The Army said Spc. Jeremy Morlock had been charged with three counts of premeditated murder and one count of assault. A second soldier is being held in confinement in Kuwait, and the others three remain with their unit in Afghanistan.