GI Killed In Afghan Mine Accident

A U.S. soldier was killed when his vehicle struck a Soviet-era mine in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Thursday. Meanwhile, two suicide bombers targeted U.S., Afghan and NATO troops, killing one civilian and wounding at least nine others, including a U.S. soldier, in the latest violence to hit southern Afghanistan, officials said.

In eastern Afghanistan, U.S.-led forces killed eight suspected militants after coming under attack.

Afghanistan, especially its southern provinces, is going through its worst spate of violence since a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001 toppled the Taliban regime.

In Kandahar province Thursday, a bomber drove an explosive-laden car into a joint U.S.-Afghan army convoy on the main Kandahar-Kabul highway, seriously wounding one U.S. soldier, said Mohammadullah Khan, an Afghan army officer who was in the convoy.

The wounded soldier was part of the team that trains Afghan National Army, said Col. Tom Collins, a U.S. military spokesman.

The bomber died and an U.S. armored Humvee vehicle was damaged in the blast, Khan said.

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, a purported Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack, and said the bomber was Afghan. He said the militants will continue with "suicide bombings, guerrilla warfare and ambushes" against U.S. and their allies in Afghanistan.

Ahmadi often contacts journalists to claim attacks for the Taliban, but his exact ties to the militia's leadership are unclear.

A military medical helicopter landed at the blast site before taking the wounded away, an Associated Press reporter saw.

In nearby Uruzgan province, a suicide bomber targeting a patrol of the NATO-led force Thursday killed one civilian and wounded six others, said Maj. Scott Lundy, the spokesman for the NATO force. No alliance troops were wounded.

However, the Interior Ministry gave a different account, saying eight police were wounded in that blast, four seriously. It said police were the target of a bomber with explosives strapped to his body.

In eastern Kunar province, militants armed with small arms and machine guns attacked U.S.-led coalition forces in the Asad Abad district on Wednesday. No coalition troops were wounded, but eight militants died in the battle that followed, a coalition statement said.

In Paktika province, a U.S. military vehicle hit the Soviet-era mine late Wednesday, killing on soldier. Collins ruled out enemy action.

U.S. and NATO forces have stepped up operations along the eastern border with Pakistan and the volatile south to counter the upsurge in militant activity, believed to involve al Qaeda, Taliban and other anti-government elements, including drug traffickers.

Meanwhile, at least 15 people, including a doctor and nurses, were missing after their vehicle was stopped by gunmen as they traveled to a refugee camp in southern Kandahar province, officials said.

Taliban spokesman Ahmadi said its militants had commandeered the vehicle but hadn't kidnapped anybody, saying the passengers fled to nearby villages. Officials, however, said they had yet to locate them.