Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Five Nato soldiers killed in Afghanistan

7:34 AM McGhori

GHAZNI: Taliban bombers killed five Polish soldiers in an attack on their convoy in Afghanistan on Wednesday, one of the heaviest single losses for Warsaw’s Nato contingent in the 10-year war. Poland’s news agency PAP cited unnamed government officials as saying the troops died when a roadside bomb exploded next to a Nato convoy. When contacted by AFP, a spokesman for Polish forces in Afghanistan refused to issue an official comment “pending notification of the families of the victims”. Poland has 2,600 soldiers in Afghanistan and is one of the largest contributors to Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which expects to withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2014. In Kabul, ISAF confirmed...
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Afghanistan opening first major train service

1:50 AM McGhori

KABUL: Officials say the first train has run on Afghanistan’s first major railroad service. The new line in the country’s north should ease the US military’s supply flow and is key to future trade. Deputy Public Works Minister Noor Gul Mangal says the cargoless train chugged into Mazar-i-Sharif on Wednesday after a 47-mile trial run from the border with Uzbekistan. It is the first leg stage a plan to link landlocked Afghanistan to its neighbors’ extensive railways. ADB economist Juan Miranda says the $165 million line will release a bottleneck now holding up cargo. A US Defence spokesman says the railway will speed up supplies coming in to American troops. The US recently shifted much of its supply line north from routes...
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Police kill would-be suicide bomber in Afghanistan

1:45 AM McGhori

KABUL: Afghan police say they shot dead a would-be suicide bomber before he was able to attack a police station in an eastern province. Youqib Khan, deputy police chief in Khost province, says policemen on Wednesday identified the would-be bomber in front of a bank next to the police station in Khost city and killed him before he could detonate his explosives vest. Khan says a search operation is under way because police fear the attacker, who was wearing a vest packed with explosives, might not have been working alone. No one except the would-be bomber was killed, but Khan says a security guard at the bank was wounde...
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