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