Bombing kills six NATO troops

KABUL, Afghanistan – An explosives-packed minibus blew up at the entrance of a joint NATO-Afghan base in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing six NATO troops and two Afghan soldiers as they prepared to head out on patrol.

NATO has claimed improvements in security after months of raids, patrols and strikes on insurgents in Kandahar province, but Sunday’s blast – the deadliest attack on coalition troops this month – shows the area is still far from safe.

The assault comes days ahead of a major White House review of its Afghan strategy following President Barack Obama’s decision last year to send 30,000 American reinforcements in a bid to reverse gains by the Taliban since they were ousted from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Afghan officials said Sunday’s suicide attack took place in Kandahar’s Zhari district, where Mullah Mohammad Omar organized the Taliban in the early 1990s. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the blast, saying the insurgent group was retaliating for attacks on its fighters in the area in recent months.

U.S. and Afghan forces launched a major operation in September to secure Zhari, a lush farming region of irrigation canals and grape vineyards that the Taliban have used as a staging area for attacks in nearby Kandahar city and other parts of the south.

In a two-day trip to Afghanistan last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Washington’s year-old surge strategy for the war is working and the goal of pulling U.S. troops out of major combat by 2014 can be met.

“Coalition and Afghan forces are suffering more casualties, but there is no denying that the security climate is improving and that the sacrifices of Afghan and coalition troops are achieving greater safety and security for both our nations,” Gates told reporters.

At the Howz-E-Madad base in Zhari district, the No. 2 coalition commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, told reporters last weekend that he expected the enemy to retaliate after losing “a bunch of terrain they used to control.”

He said insurgents are responding with a “murder and intimidation campaign” to try and stop the progress that coalition forces are making in the south.

In Sunday’s attack, a suicide bomber drove a minibus into the entrance of the coalition base just as troops were preparing vehicles to move out on a morning patrol, said Gen. Abdul Hamid, the Afghan army chief for Kandahar province.

“They were leaving the compound and at that moment, the minibus attacked and they hit right at the entrance of the base,” Hamid said.