In Afghanistan, 2 U.S. troops killed in attacks

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide car bomb attack Saturday on a heavily guarded road between a U.S. military base and the German Embassy in the Afghan capital killed one U.S. service member and four Afghan civilians, officials said.

Separately, a U.S. service member died when militants fired at a CH-47 transport helicopter and it made a “hard landing” in eastern Kunar province, the U.S. military said. Military spokesman Col. Greg Julian said it wasn’t immediately clear whether the incoming fire brought down the helicopter.

The attacks come at a time of increasing attention on Afghanistan as President-elect Barack Obama is set to take office. Obama has promised to increase America’s focus on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan while decreasing troop levels in Iraq.

The U.S. has said it will send up to 30,000 new troops into Afghanistan in 2009, including some 3,000 forces in two provinces adjacent to Kabul, where militants now have free reign. The U.S. now has some 32,000 troops in Afghanistan.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bomb attack in Kabul and said German military personnel were the targets. A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin said “some personnel” were wounded in the blast, but he did not give numbers. He said they had no reports of deaths.

U.S. military spokesman Col. Jerry O’Hara said one U.S. service member died from wounds in the 9:45 a.m. attack on a busy Kabul street. The blast also wounded six American troops and a U.S. civilian, he said.

Four Afghan civilians died in the blast, and at least 19 wounded were being treated at two hospitals, the interior minister said. Two other wounded civilians were at other hospitals, said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the Defense Ministry spokesman.

The German Embassy shares a small, two-lane road with Camp Eggers, a U.S. base that serves as the headquarters for soldiers who train Afghan police and army personnel. Dozens of armed Afghan security personnel guard the street, and blast walls of concrete and sand-filled mesh-wire boxes line the road.

“It did not breach the wall [of the base],” said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Kubik. “It was fairly close, but I can’t tell you if they were targeting us or not.”

Windows inside the German compound shattered in the explosion, but the wall protecting the compound is still intact, a German Foreign Ministry spokesman said. He refused to give his name for publication, citing government policy.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said a Taliban suicide bomber named Shumse Rehman carried out the attack in a Toyota Corolla. He said the bomber targeted two vehicles believed to be carrying German military officers.

In a third attack Saturday, a suicide bomber in a minivan charged a convoy of NATO troops and Afghan police in eastern Nangarhar province. The explosion in Chaparhar district killed one civilian and wounded three others, said Ghafor Khan, a spokesman for the provincial police chief. He said three policemen were also wounded.