Afghanistan Violence Worries Coalition

Militants have stepped up attacks against coalition and Afghan forces, particularly across southern Afghanistan, in a bid to derail reconstruction efforts four years after a U.S.-led military force toppled the Taliban regime for harboring Osama bin Laden.

Rising violence is a growing concern for nations contributing troops to a force operating here under a NATO mandate. The force is to rise from its current 10,000 soldiers to about 21,000 by November as it gradually assumes command of all international troops in Afghanistan.

A roadside bomb blast killed four Canadian soldiers Saturday in southern Afghanistan in the deadliest attack against Canadian forces since they deployed here in 2002, the military said.

Canadian officers blamed Taliban militants for detonating a massive roadside bomb that destroyed one of four armored vehicles in a convoy in Gomboth, a village about 25 miles north of the southern city of Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold. The blast was followed by militants and soldiers exchanging gunfire before the extremists fled.

A 2,200-soldier Canadian contingent moved into southern Afghanistan to relieve U.S. troops. Canada has had forces in the country since the U.S.-led offensive that toppled the Taliban at the end of 2001, and a total of at least 16 Canadians have been killed.

On Sunday, militants also fired four rockets into the U.S.-led coalition base in Kandahar, but there were no casualties or damages, Canadian military spokesman Maj. Quentin Innis said.

It was unclear who was behind the attack, but suspicion fell on Taliban militants. A fourth rocket hit an open area at about 11 a.m.

The base houses about 7,000 coalition personnel and is currently run by the U.S. military, but will be turned over to Canadian control in July as part of NATO's expanding role in Afghanistan.

Some 6,000 mainly British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers have started deploying in remote tribal-dominated southern region.

Britain's deployment coincides with its taking control of the NATO mission in May for three years.

Elsewhere in the region, Taliban militants attacked an Afghan construction company working for coalition forces, killing a security guard.

The fighting came as visiting British Defense Secretary John Reid said coalition troops must maintain their offensive against Taliban and al Qaeda militants to prevent their return to power.

"The greatest danger of all for the people of Afghanistan and the people of the United Kingdom would be if Afghanistan ever again came under the rule of a Taliban regime prepared to protect al Qaeda or terrorist groups," Reid told reporters in the capital, Kabul.

Afghan police and soldiers fought Taliban militants in the volatile Gelan district of southern Ghazni province about 75 miles southwest of Kabul, said provincial Gov. Haji Sher Alam. Three Taliban fighters and a policeman were killed, he told The Associated Press.

The attack on the construction company occurred on the Uruzgan-Kandahar highway near a southern Kandahar village where four Canadian soldiers were killed in a suspected Taliban roadside bombing a day earlier.

A group of heavily armed militants waged a two-hour attack against the headquarters of the Thavazoo company in Shah Wali Kot district, about 25 miles north of Kandahar city, said Haji Mohammed Youssef, the company's director.

One guard was killed and two were wounded before the remaining security personnel fled, Youssef said. The Taliban fighters then entered the compound, burned 14 trucks and bulldozers and stole equipment before escaping.

Youssef said coalition forces gave him a contract to build a 25-mile stretch of road.

On Saturday, U.S. and Afghan soldiers arrested 16 Taliban members in two raids in the southern Zabul province, which neighbors Kandahar, local Afghan army commander Gen. Rahmattalluh Roufi said Sunday.

"The Americans are questioning them now to see if they are important Taliban members or not," Roufi told the AP.

It was unclear if the arrests or the Taliban attack on the construction company were linked to the killing of the four Canadian soldiers, the deadliest attack on that nation's troops since they deployed here in 2002.

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence officials believe Osama bin Laden is hiding in a remote tribal area along Afghanistan's 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, separated from his top deputy and, in a sign he has to be careful about whom he trusts, surrounded by fellow Arabs.

His No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is hiding in a more settled area along the border, surrounded by al-Qaida operatives of his Egyptian nationality, officials familiar with his pursuit, said.

On Sunday, bin Laden was heard in his first new message in three months, purportedly saying the West was at war with Islam and calling on his followers to go to Sudan to fight a proposed U.N. force in Darfur.

Bin Laden's separation from al-Zawahiri has opened a debate in national security circles in the United States and elsewhere about whether the leaders have split up. Neither man mentions the other by name in public pronouncements, and both headed separate groups before joining forces in 1998.

Al-Zawahiri has decided to take a more prominent public role than has bin Laden, releasing dozens of written and recorded Internet messages, including a video this month urging Muslims to support Iraqi insurgents.

Also, Pakistan said a Syrian terrorist killed in a shootout Thursday was a close aide of al-Zawahiri.

Pakistan's information minister describes the dead man, Marwan Hadid al-Suri, as "an important man" in al Qaeda, believed to have run a financial network for the terror group. He was also suspected of waging attacks on Afghan and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

He was killed in a tribal region along the Afghan border that was also the site of a U.S. missile strike in January targeting al-Zawahri.

Officials said his identity was confirmed by studying a laptop computer and documents found in his vehicle.