Taliban guerrillas kill 4 Afghan soldiers
Earlier, an explosion killed four American special forces soldiers.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- Taliban guerrillas riding in a fleet of vehicles shot up a government office in southern Afghanistan, killing four Afghan soldiers, an official said Sunday. One gunman also was killed.
The attack came just hours after an explosion killed four special forces soldiers traveling in a humvee, one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. troops trying to stop resurgent militants from wrecking planned national elections.
The suspected Taliban militiamen swept into Musa Qala, a market town 150 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul, late Saturday, opening fire on the government office with assault rifles and heavy machine guns, mayor Mullah Amir Aghunzada told The Associated Press.
Four of the 30 soldiers defending the compound were killed and eight others were wounded, Aghunzada said. One Taliban fighter was also killed and four were captured, three of them wounded.
The official said about 100 Afghan troops rushed from the provincial capital, Lashkargah, and began combing the area for the attackers Sunday.
"There is some support for them in this area," Aghunzada said. "They live up in the mountains and come down at night."
Death of U.S. troops
The four American special forces soldiers perished Saturday about 20 miles east of Qalat, the capital of southeastern Zabul province.
"An explosive device detonated under the [humvee] the four were traveling in," spokeswoman Lt. Col. Michele DeWerth said.
The toll was one of the worst for a single attack on the U.S.-led coalition force, which currently numbers a record 20,000, since it entered Afghanistan to topple the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in late 2001.
DeWerth gave no more details.
An Afghan government official told AP the humvee hit a mine in Zabul's mountainous Sorie district. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three more Americans were wounded in the blast.
At least 89 American service members have died in and around Afghanistan since the start of the U.S. war on terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. Fifty-five of them were killed in action.
The vast majority of the 360 people killed in violence across Afghanistan this year are Afghan soldiers and civilians.
Elections set
Some of that violence is attributed to drug-smugglers and feuding warlords, who still control much of the country. But some also is caused by militants bent on disrupting the country's first post-Taliban elections slated for September.
The United Nations and Afghan officials so far have registered some 2.7 million of the estimated 10 million Afghans eligible to vote. But poor security means officials have been unable to enter rural areas in much of the south and east.
The U.S. military has insisted the vote can go ahead and announced Saturday that thousands of U.S.-trained troops from the new Afghan National Army will fan out across the country to help 20,000 German-trained police provide security.
NATO-led peacekeepers also are expected to expand north from Kabul in time for the vote. The 6,400-strong force took delivery Sunday of three Turkish Black Hawk helicopters to ease its shortage of equipment.
A U.N. spokesman said the pace of registration would pick up, despite the likelihood of attacks on election workers.
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