4 U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan Blast

Military says Service Members Killed by Bomb Explosion in Southern Part of Country; October Death Toll Hits 25

(AP)  Four more American troops died in a bombing in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Friday, as a U.N.-backed panel completed most of its investigation into whether the level of fraud in the August presidential election would require a runoff.

Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States says he expects a second round vote will be required.

Rising death tolls and the political crisis brought on by a fraud-marred election have prompted the Obama administration to review its entire Afghanistan war strategy.

Two of the U.S. service members were killed instantly in the Thursday blast and two others died of their wounds, the U.S. said in a statement. No further details were released.

The deaths bring to 25 the number of American service members killed in Afghanistan this month, according to an Associated Press count.

CBS News' Special Report: The Road Ahead

Elsewhere, four Afghans, including at least two civilians, died during a firefight Friday between militants and a joint international-Afghan force in Ghazni province. There were conflicting accounts of the gunbattle.

The NATO-led coalition said two militants fired from a two-story building and troops returned fire, killing a pair of gunmen. "When the joint force entered the building, they discovered two civilians who subsequently died from their wounds," the coalition said in a statement. "It is unclear if the enemy militants or the joint force are responsible for the deaths."

Ghazni police chief Gen. Khail Buz Sherzai said the dead were all civilians from the same family. A native of Mangor village, Mohammad Sarwar, said the operation began late Thursday when U.S. and Afghan forces raided several houses overnight, blowing apart doors and window with explosives. He also said four civilians were killed in the operation and several were beaten.

Insurgent violence has increased across Afghanistan this year, coinciding with a boost in U.S. military numbers. President Barack Obama is now considering whether to commit still more American troops to the about 65,000 already here.

The White House is considering various options, including a sharp increase in the number of U.S. troops or shifting the focus to missile strikes and special operations raids against al Qaeda members hiding in neighboring Pakistan.

Mr. Obama is not expected to decide until after the Afghans determine whether they must hold a runoff election between President Hamid Karzai and his top challenger, Abdullah Adbullah.

Preliminary results from the Aug. 20 poll had put Karzai in the lead with 54.6 percent of the vote compared to about 28 percent for Abdullah. The fraud rulings could eliminate enough Karzai votes to push him below the 50 percent threshold to force a second round.

A spokeswoman for the Electoral Complaints Commission said the panel has completed the bulk of its investigation but commissioners are still analyzing complaints and calculating figures before deciding on a runoff.

Investigators late Thursday completed an audit of 3,377 polling stations that returned unlikely results showing 100 percent turnout or a single candidate receiving 95 percent of the vote, said Nellika Little, a commission spokeswoman.

But the panel is still investigating individual fraud complaints. "We are still working on the numbers," Little told The Associated Press. "We haven't figured out a percentage."

An announcement is widely expected Saturday, after which the country's Independent Election Commission will announce final results and whether a runoff is needed. Any runoff is supposed to be held within two weeks, but many fear winter snows and insecurity could make the vote difficult or impossible.

In Washington, Karzai's ambassador to the United States, Said Tayeb Jawad, said Thursday that a runoff vote was very likely. He was the first official from Karzai's government to predict publicly that the challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, will have enough support to force a runoff.

Jawad said all sides should work hard to hold the runoff vote swiftly - ideally within a month.

A two-week deadline mandated in the country's constitution is "impossible," Jawad said. He worried that if the deadline slipped far into November, the weather will be too cold in parts of the country. Voters in Afghanistan, a country of great distances and few roads, often must travel long distances and spend significant time outdoors.

Jawad spoke at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and afterward with The Associated Press.

Citing anonymous sources it said were familiar with the results, The Washington Post reported Friday that Karzai's share of the vote had dropped to 47 percent. Little disputed that report, saying the commission's decisions were not completed, so no percentage was possible.

Uncertainty over the election outcome has eaten away at Karzai's legitimacy, leaving Afghanistan in limbo as the Taliban-led insurgency in the countryside deepens and the Obama administration debates its strategy in a war that has become increasingly unpopular in the U.S.

[wyodutch]

I picked-up a load of feed the day before yesterday and got to talking to a local rancher on the loading dock.
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He said he has a 14-year old son and if they bring the draft back... he'll move his family to Canada before he'd see his son shipped to the Mideast or Afghanistan.
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By the way.. he's a VietNam War vet himself.
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The times, they are a'changin.

[wyodutch]

God Bless these four young fellows and their families.
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I cannot imagine a less worthy alter for their sacrifices than Afghanistan or Iraq.

[timdgrim]

Young men and women continue to die for the profit of the 'Terrorism Industrial Complex' as warned by Colin Powell in 2007. Throw more money and lives at something the Military Industrial Complex wants to continue indefinitely while the profits flow while also does the blood of America's sons and daughters.

[bubbadubba]

"Our Sons and Daughters continue to fall in President Obama's War-for-Profit."

Yea, like you said, "Obama's war".
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Ridiculous.

[DaVicar8]

Our Sons and Daughters continue to fall in President Obama's War-for-Profit.
Where is the change we were promised?

[Ms_enza]

If you stop being stupid, I will send you $10.

[DaVicar8]

by Ms_enza "If you stop being stupid, I will send you $10."


Your money is no good here.

The advice of Joe Biden a foremost and well known military genius with endless experiences of courage and valor in the battlefield is now an expert in the field of warfare. Is this a joke? Obama selects McChrystal, handpicked by him, and the best commander for the job who requests 40,000 to 80,000 troops and Adriana Huffington and Joe Biden are now the experts in charge of the war! You left wing liberals have been drinking a lot of kool-aid lately. Since Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for his great achievement of doing nothing, the terrorists (Yes Taliban and AlQaeda) are running rampant, not only in Afghanistan but also Iraq and Pakistan as well. Obama needs to fly to the middle east to wave the Nobel Peace Priza and with his enigmatic and powerful oratory persuade the terrorists to throw away their weapons and join the World for the Peace festivities!

[underdogus09]

The US troops are an unwanted foreign occupation. Over Afghanistan's history, no such occupiers have ever left that region "victorious." Neither will we.......

[jwesel1]

When it comes to smartness, you're no underdog.

[underdogus09]

Our Marines will be defeated in Afghanistan. They may win every firefight, and will certainly win most of them, but they will be decisively defeated for one inescapable reason: they will leave. The insurgents will wait them out. The insurgents know that. The villagers know that. I suspect the Marines know that......

[underdogus09]

I'm old enough to remember the war in Vietnam, and this is too much like that. A foreign army trying to stamp out a domestic political movement. In Vietnam we called the local fighters "guerrillas." Now we call them "terrorists." The words don't matter. What matters is that their guys are right at home and our guys are half a world from home.

[underdogus09]

Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die!

[RedWings_ninety_one]

True, but I belive that if we were never in Iraq, we'd have a better shot at winning.