Two U.S. soldiers die in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan – With just a month until legislative elections, violence in Afghanistan shows no sign of letting up. Insurgents are waging an escalating campaign that killed two U.S. soldiers in a roadside bombing Thursday.

But things could be worse, new U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann says. His last posting was Iraq.

The situation there was “10 times more violent,” but still elections went ahead, the envoy said at his first news conference since arriving in Kabul. “What you have here is already so much better.”

A surge of violence since winter has killed about 1,000 people in Afghanistan – 59 American soldiers among them. Militants have stepped up assaults in the south and east trying to sabotage the U.S.-backed recovery, while U.S. and Afghan troops answer with their own offensives.

On Thursday, a homemade bomb hit a convoy of U.S. troops supporting crews improving a road from the main southern city of Kandahar to outlying mountains. Two soldiers in an armored vehicle were killed and two were wounded, the military said in a statement.

The recent loss of life pales next to the casualties suffered in Iraq, but it has dampened some of the optimism that prevailed after Afghanistan’ inaugural presidential election passed off peacefully last fall and insurgent attacks dropped off during the winter.

“There is certainly more violence, and there are violent elements trying to come back,” Neumann said. “I think this is a situation that will probably be difficult for some time.”

But he said there are enough international forces – some 21,000 U.S.-led coalition troops and a separate 10,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force – as well as local Afghan forces to safeguard the vote.

“There are people who will try to kill candidates and who will try to stop the election,” he said. “They will fail. They have absolutely no chance of stopping this election.”

“When millions of people want to go vote, they will go vote,” he said.

His comments came a day after the start of the official one-month campaigning period for the Sept. 18 elections.

The surge of violence and militant threats to kill candidates and voters have discouraged many political hopefuls from stumping for the election that is the next important step toward democracy since the hard-line Taliban regime was ousted in late 2001 by a U.S.-led offensive.

Despite their worries about the bloodshed, officials are upbeat that there won’t be any major disruptions.

A “majority of the candidates will move forward with their candidatures, and the environment in most parts of the country will be conducive to free and fair elections,” Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah told reporters on an official visit to Australia.

Nevertheless, he said, the elections “will not be without any challenge for us.”

Part of the effort to safeguard the vote has been an aggressive campaign by Afghan and coalition forces to go after militants in the south and east.