Afghanistan war: Suicide attack highlights Taliban reach

The site of the suicide attack is near the Pakistan border, in one of the areas where the Taliban insurgency is strongest. Security in the region was stepped up on Thursday.

JOURNALIST KILLED
The five Canadians — four soldiers and a journalist — were killed when their armored vehicle was hit by a bomb in southern Kandahar Province, the Canadian Defense Ministry said.

The blast, about 4 km (2.5 miles) outside Kandahar, struck the patrol as it was visiting community reconstruction projects.

Washington has pledged a "civilian surge," adding hundreds of US experts to support work on development projects that aim to undermine support for the Taliban and other insurgents.

But foreign aid agencies warned earlier this year that the shift into the military bases, and the use of military personnel to carry out development projects, risked a dangerous blurring of the boundaries between troops and civilians.

The journalist killed was Michelle Lang, on assignment for the Canwest News Service. She was on her first assignment in Afghanistan and had been in the country since Dec. 11.

She is the third journalist to die in Afghanistan this year.

Two French journalists were also kidnapped by insurgents on Wednesday, when travelling in an area northeast of the capital with a driver and translator, a police official said. Media sources in Paris said they were working for French television.

In another incident, a number of civilians were killed by a foreign forces’ air strike in southern Helmand province on Wednesday, Daoud Ahmadi, the provincial governor’s spokesman, said. He did not know how many had died but said an investigation had begun. NATO-led forces declined to make an immediate comment.

The incident is the second report of civilian casualties at the hands of foreign forces in under a week, and has heightened tensions between the Afghan government and foreign troops.

Afghan and United Nations officials say foreign troops killed at least eight civilians, mostly teenagers, in a raid in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, sparking protests around the country.

The NATO-led force said it was questioning the claims of civilian casualties and maintains they were insurgents. It has called for a joint investigation with Afghan authorities.

The news of more casualties came on Thursday as hundreds of people protested in Kunar, where Saturday’s raid took place.

(Additional reporting by Ismail Sameem in KANDAHAR; Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)

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