Deadliest day this year for US in Afghanistan

May 19, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan

A suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near a U.S. convoy Tuesday, killing 18 people, including six troops — five Americans and a Canadian — in the deadliest attack on NATO in the Afghan capital in eight months.

Two other American service members were killed in separate attacks in the south, making Tuesday the deadliest day of the year for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The Canadian, Col. Geoff Parker, 42, was the highest-ranking member of the Canadian Forces to die in Afghanistan since the Canadian mission began in 2002, the country’s military said.

Twelve Afghan civilians also died — many of them on a public bus in rush-hour traffic along a major thoroughfare that runs by the ruins of a one-time royal palace and government ministries. At least 47 people were wounded, the Interior Ministry said.

The blast was the first major attack in the Afghan capital since February and followed a Taliban announcement of a spring offensive even as the U.S. gears up for a major push to restore order in the turbulent south.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the blast, telling The Associated Press in a telephone call that the bomber was a man from Kabul and that the vehicle was packed with 1,650 pounds of explosives.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai joined the U.S. and NATO in condemning the attack, which he said killed women and children.

The explosion happened about 8 a.m. as streets were packed with cars, buses and trucks. The bomb ripped apart vehicles and hurled body parts along the street. U.S. and Afghan forces blocked off the area as emergency workers loaded the wounded into ambulances.

U.S. forces spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks said five American service members were killed in the Kabul blast. That plus the two deaths in the south brought the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan since the war began in 2001 to at least 994, according to an Associated Press count.