Afghan militants hit several targets

KABUL, Afghanistan – Insurgents staged deadly, coordinated strikes Monday in the western city of Herat, where an explosion killed at least four people in a bustling downtown area and a car bomb detonated at the gates of a NATO base, injuring five Italian soldiers inside, Afghan and coalition officials said. An Afghan soldier died in a subsequent shootout.

Herat, a normally tranquil city that lies close to Afghanistan’s border with Iran, has been designated as one of the first areas of the country where security responsibilities are to be handed over to Afghan forces by Western troops beginning in July.

Three members of the NATO force were killed Monday in other parts of the country, according to military statements. Two died in a roadside bombing in the east and one in a helicopter’s “hard landing” – essentially a controlled crash – in the south.

Monday’s late-morning car-bomb blast outside the Italian-run base on Herat’s outskirts triggered a sustained shootout in which 11 Afghan soldiers were injured, provincial authorities said, adding that four assailants died.

Around the same time, a bomb apparently concealed in a motorbike went off at a busy city intersection, said Noor Khan Nekzad, a Herat provincial police spokesman. In addition to the four dead, he said nearly three dozen other people were hurt.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Also Monday, the Western military said an attacker in an Afghan army uniform fired on coalition troops in southern Afghanistan, killing at least one member of the NATO force, whose nationality was not disclosed.