Afghanistan suicide blast kills 3 NATO troops, interpreter

An Afghan policeman walks past the site of a suicide attack in Khost on October 1, 2012. A suicide attack on a joint Afghan-NATO foot patrol killed at least 14 people, including three NATO soldiers and an interpreter, officials said. / STR/AFP/Getty Images

Last Updated 10:22 a.m. ET

KABUL, Afghanistan A suicide bomber driving a motorcycle packed with explosives rammed his bike into a patrol of Afghan and international forces on Monday, killing at least 14 people, including three NATO service members and their translator, officials said.

Khost provincial governor Abdul Jabar Naimi told CBS News the attack was carried out by an insurgent who approached a joint patrol of U.S. and Afghan troops on a motorcycle in central Khost city.

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Taliban links to al Qaeda

The nationalities of the NATO service members killed was not immediately released.

Naimi said 10 Afghans - six civilians and four police officers, including the commander of regional quick reaction force - were also killed, and dozens of other Afghan nationals wounded in the blast.

The city's hospital alone was treating about 30 people injured in the explosion, according to a physician working there.

A Taliban spokesman said in text messages to media that the insurgent group was behind the attack.

• NATO, Afghanistan assure bond strong after attack
• Examining the scourge of "insider attacks"
• Talking to the Taliban: Face to face with the enemy

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Talking to the Taliban: Face to face with the enemy

On "60 Minutes" Sunday, Lara Logan interviewed a Taliban commander in Kabul, who claimed the Taliban have infiltrated Afghan security forces and are behind the rise in "insider attacks" in that country.

More than 50 NATO service members have been killed this year by Afghan security forces or by terrorist in disguise.

"These are Taliban attacks," the commander said. "This is part of our new military strategy. We have our people in the Afghan police and the army. And the orders come from the top."

He said al Qaeda fighters who have come to Afghanistan bring the skills to make IEDs and repair weapons. He told Logan that he has more than a dozen al Qaeda fighters under his command.

"There are many [Taliban] groups that have them. We can't do this without them," he said.

[samXXkiley]

coucou,
for terrorists and Afghan security forces, U.S. and NATO are colonizers, ie enemies.
the U.S. and its allies know so.
"au revoir"

[quincytodd]

We need to just pull out of Afghanistan just like the Russians did back in 1989. We have no more right to be in that country than they did, either. Let these people rebuild their own country without our interference just like did for the Vietnamese after 1975!

[Yimmybob]

Why do murdered US TROOPS [not NATO] need an interpreter? We are not in Assghanistan to chat with the Muslim Jihad enemy, but to make WAR on them! What tin suited PC General thought that bending over to be nice to Jihadist Islamics would make them nice and like us? Dumb and Dumber.

[Orion-__]

What an absolute waste of life, money and time. The 'graveyard of empires' continues to be just as advertised for thousands of years.

[quincytodd]

Well put, Orion. Thank you.

[Pappione]

Attention CBS,
You don't have to be like ABC News. You can report that the three "NATO service members" were United States soldiers; thus increasing the published total of American troops killed to 2003. I know that it not a popular thing to report, but MOST of us do prefer outright honesty.
Thank You

[Nikos_Retsos]

Let's face the truth. We have failed for 10 years in Afghanistan, and we will fail even if we try to win that war for another 100 years. We have an army that is trained to "kill, kill, kill, kill," as it was featured in a "Frontline" documentary aired on PBS, but that kind of warfare is good for the WWII battles, not for guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare can be won if an invading force is accepted by the inhabitants as a liberating force - not as an occupying force. Since Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Attila the Hun, the Ottomans, and the colonial powers later, all invaders had eventually had to retreat because they were never accepted by the local populations. That is our fate in Afghanistan, but Obama has been waiting for his re-election to swallow it, fearing that if he had thrown in the towel, he would have saddled the U.S. with another Vietnam Syndrome, and his re-election would have been trashed!

Let him have his re-election now; hopefully speed up the withdrawal afterward, and let's get the hell out of Afghanistan ASAP. They hate us "every- which -way" they can, and we don't belong there. And we would certainly be saddled with an "Afghan Syndrome," even though we would try to mask it as a withdrawal - as we did in Vietnam. But we won't fool anybody - except ourselves! In retrospect, looking at Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, China's revolutionary leader Mao Tse-tung , who had called the U.S. "a paper tiger," might be laughing in his grave! Nikos Retsos, retired professor

[xieksis]

They dont care who they kill as long as they get to be a martyr...

Get the hello out of there and then feed them a steady diet of M&Ms(martyr maker drones)

If one wants to train these dessert rats then disarm them while training...