Roadside Bomb Blast Kills Five in Karachi, third this week

Security officials examine a bus after it was damaged by a bomb in Karachi April 28, 2011. The roadside bomb hit the bus carrying Pakistani navy officials in the port city of Karachi on Thursday, killing three people and wounding at least seven,Taliban militants in Pakistan extended their campaign of violence Thursday against the country's security forces, targeting the navy for the third time this week with a bombing that killed five in the southern city of Karachi ...

Christmas Eve explosions kill 32 people in Nigeria after two churches are targeted

A policeman standing guard at the entrance of the police headquarters in Jos. A series of Christmas Eve church attacks and explosions have left at least 14 people dead in Nigeria

Explosions in Nigeria's central region killed 32 people on Christmas Eve and six people died in attacks on two churches in the northeast of Africa's most populous nation, officials said on Saturday.

On Friday night, a series of bombs were detonated during Christmas Eve celebrations in villages near the central city of Jos, killing at least 32 people while 74 were in a critical condition, the state police commissioner said.

Nigeria's army chief said the blasts were not part of religious clashes which flare up sporadically as tensions bubble under the surface in a country where the population is split roughly equally between Muslims and Christians.

It (Jos explosions) was caused by a series of bomb blasts. That is terrorism, it's a very unfortunate incident,' Azubuike Ihejirika said in the southern city of Port Harcourt.

The attacks come at a difficult time for President Goodluck Jonathan, who is in running a controversial campaign ahead of the ruling party's primaries on January 13

A ruling party pact says that power within the People's Democratic Party (PDP) should rotate between the mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south every two terms.

Suspected Islamist sect members attacked three churches in northern Nigeria on Christmas Eve, leaving six people dead and one of the churches burned

Rome ‘bomb’ could not explode

Two Carabinieri stand in front of a Rome underground train station where an explosive device was found, December 21, 2010


A suspected bomb was found in an empty underground train carriage in Rome today, but police said it lacked a detonator and could not have exploded.

The device, described by one police source as rudimentary, was found by a driver preparing a train for service in a marshalling yard near the Rebibbia metro station at about 0900 GMT (1700 Malaysian time), transport authority ATAC said.

It was in a box with cables, batteries and antennas, an ATAC spokesman said.

“It didn’t have a detonator, it couldn’t explode,” a spokesman for the Carabinieri, Italy’s paramilitary police force, told Reuters by telephone.

He said it contained a small quantity of explosive powder.

The device was discovered at a time of increased tension in Italy following anti-government protests last week that descended into some of the worst violence in Rome for years.

A senior Iraqi official said last week that al Qaeda was planning attacks in the US, Britain and Europe around Christmas.

A suspected suicide bomber was killed in a botched attack in Stockholm on December 11. Police believe he was planning to attack a train station or department store at the height of the Christmas shopping season.

Fears of dummy bomb runs by 'terror scouts' at regional airports

Alerts: Counter-terror officials fear regional airports are being targeted for dummy runs by would-be terrorists


Security officials have tested security at regional airports amid fears terror scouts have been staging dummy runs, it emerged today.

Two suspect packages have reportedly been spotted in the last three months which appeared to be like improvised bombs.

One hidden in a box inside a bag of hand luggage had a BlackBerry attached to a baby's bottle with a charging cable thought to be simulating a detonator.

The second - spotted at the same airport some weeks later - also contained a mobile phone and detonator, according to The Guardian.

Both 'devices' were examined by bomb disposal experts and found to be harmless, meaning no passengers were charged.

Stockholm bomber.CCTV video shows how close killer came to murdering hundreds of festive shoppers

Dramatic footage of what are thought to be the final moments of the Swedish suicide bomber has emerged, showing how he was moments from killing and injuring hundreds of Christmas shoppers.

The film, from a CCTV camera only yards from where British-educated Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly detonated his home-made device, shows a man wearing a backpack walking down one of Stockholm’s busiest shopping streets surrounded by dozens of members of the public.

The man appears to rummage inside his coat, possibly trying to detonate the bomb. He then quickly changes direction, walking back through the shoppers and down a quiet side street.



Hidden threat: The man walks amid shoppers


Suspicious: He turns towards a side street

Panic: Shoppers scatter from the blast on the left

Suicide bombers kill seven and wound 65 in Pakistan as tensions mount between Washington and Islamabad

Two children and five adults were killed when two suicide bombers attacked worshippers at a a shrine in Pakistan's largest city.

A further 65 were injured when the bombs were detonated at the beloved Sufi shrine in Karachi, sending a stark reminder of the threat posed by Islamist militants to the U.S.-allied nation.

The attack came amid tensions between Washington and Islamabad over NATO helicopter incursions that have led Pakistan to close a key border crossing used to ferry supplies to Western troops in Afghanistan.

Search: Pakistani security personnel collect evidence from the blast site after two bomb explosions at the entrance of the shrine on the busiest day for worshippers

Injured: A child waits for hospital treatment after being caught in the blast at the Sufi shrine in Karachi. At least two children and five adults were killed and 65 injured by two suicide bombers

Militants destroy 27 Nato oil tankers in southern Pakistan after supply route to Afghanistan closed

Suspected militants in southern Pakistan have destroyed at least 27 tankers carrying fuel for foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The incident came the day after the Pakistan government blocked supply routes to its neighbour in an apparent protest at a Nato air raid which killed three Pakistani troops.

The convoy of tankers attacked on Friday is believed to have been heading to a second crossing in the southwest of the country which was still open. It is not yet clear if the vehicles had been diverted because of the border closure.

Attack: At least 27 tankers carrying fuel for foreign troops in Afghanistan were destroyed in southern Pakistan on Friday morning

Border: Pakistan closed the crossing in an apparent protest at a Nato air raid which killed three Pakistani troops earlier this week

Eiffel Tower evaciated after bomb scare.

The Eiffel Tower was evacuated last night, for the second time this month, on a bomb threat that turned out to be false

Blast in Iranian city kills 12, injures dozens

Twelve people were killed and dozens injured when a bomb exploded among a crowd watching a military parade in northwestern Iran today that a local official blamed on “anti-revolutionary” militants.

Some 35 people were wounded, 15 critically, in the blast in the city of Mahabad, in a predominantly Kurdish area near the borders of Iraq and Turkey, the ISNA news agency reported.

 There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but local officials blamed militants, possibly helped by foreign countries wishing to harm the Islamic Republic during “Sacred Defence” celebrations, an annual ceremony for the Iranian military.

“This bomb was a time-bomb planted on a tree among the people and it went off at 10:20 (0650 GMT),” the website of state-run television IRIB quoted a military official as saying.

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards march during a parade to commemorate anniversary of Iran-Iraq war, in Tehran. In northwestern Iran, a bomb exploded among a crowd watching a military parade and 12 people were killed

Blasts kill 20 in Pakistan’s Lahore, 170 hurt

Three bombs exploded at a Shi’ite procession in the Pakistani city of Lahore yesterday, killing at least 20 people and wounding over 170, piling pressure on a government already overwhelmed by floods.

Police said two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd, after a lull in violence during the floods, the type of attack that Pakistani Taliban militants have claimed in the past.

Sajjad Bhutta, a senior Lahore official, told Reuters the death toll had climbed to 20, with at least 170 wounded. Rescue services said 25 were killed.

Separately, the US Justice Department said prosecutors had charged the leader of the al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, for the plot that killed seven CIA employees at an American base in Afghanistan last December.

A policeman removes his motorcycle from the scenes of protests in Lahore September 1, 2010

Grenade explodes near Thai state TV channel

A grenade exploded in the compound of a Thai state-run broadcaster today but no one was injured, police said, the fourth mysterious blast in five weeks during a state of emergency in Bangkok.

The grenade damaged three vehicles inside the compound close to one of the city’s largest military bases on Viphavadi-Rangsit Road leading to the capital, said police Colonel Paisan Wongwatcharamongkol, citing witnesses.

Authorities suspect the grenade was shot from an M79 launcher positioned on an overhead highway, Paisan said.”Three vehicles were slightly damaged by sharpnel from the explosion.”

Broadcaster NBT, whose compound was hit by the grenade, has faced criticism from “red shirt” anti-government demonstrators, who accuse the channel of biased reporting.

Scores killed, wounded in Iraq blast

Policemen direct traffic in central Baghdad, August 6, 2010.

The explosion of a power generator, possibly triggered by a bomb, at a busy market in Iraq’s southern oil hub Basra yesterday killed dozens of people and wounded scores more, morgue and security sources said.

A source at the city’s morgue said at least 25 bodies had been taken there. A security source who asked not to be identified said the toll was 45 killed and 162 wounded while a hospital source said 16 had died and at least 110 were wounded.

Witnesses reported that two or three explosions struck the popular market in the centre of Basra and two security sources said at least one of the blasts was the detonation of a car bomb. Basra Police Chief Adil Daham told al-Hurra television the explosion was caused by a malfunctioning generator.

Bomb attack at south Philippine airport, two dead

A bomb went off outside an airport in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines today, killing two people and wounding 24, local officials said.

US Ambassador Harry Thomas Jr condemned the “heinous attack” and cancelled his trip to the the city on Friday, saying he did not want police resources diverted from the investigation. Washington, he said, was ready to extend any help requested by authorities.

Police said the blast was caused by an improvised explosive device.

“There was one man who died on the spot and he could be the one who detonated the explosive device,” Celso Lobregat, mayor of the city on Mindanao island, told reporters after the incident.

Attack caused damage to Japan tanker

nvestigators have found traces of explosive on a Japanese supertanker damaged near the Strait of Hormuz last week and conclude the ship was the target of an attack, the United Arab Emirates news agency said today.

The 31 crew aboard the 333-metre-long M.Star (picture) reported an explosion shortly after midnight on July 28, injuring one seaman but causing no oil spill or disruption to shipping in the strategic waterway.

Blasts Hit World Cup Watchers in Uganda-Bombs target World Cup fans as dozens killed in Uganda blasts-Al-Shabab 'hallmarks' in Uganda blasts-64 killed in Uganda bomb blast

Devastating bar bombings kill 64 football fans as they watch World Cup final in Uganda

Innocent victim: A football fan is treated at Mulago Hospital in Kampala for injuries he received in the attack

Scores of football fans watching the World Cup final were massacred when two suspected Al Qaeda linked bombs ripped apart a restaurant and sports club.

At least 64 people died in the simultaneous attacks in the Ugandan capital Kampala which were believed to be the work of Somalian Muslim extremists.

Multiple explosions rock Baghdad -At least 7 blasts rip through Baghdad, killing 50

An Iraqi woman react at the scene of a blast in central Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Massive explosions hit apartment buildings across Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people and wounding scores more in the latest sign that Iraq's fragile security could dissolve in the chaos of the country's unresolved election.


Rescuers search for survivors at the scene of a bomb attack in central Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Massive explosions hit apartment buildings across Baghdad killing at least 34 and wounding more than 100 in the latest sign that Iraq's fragile security could dissolve in the chaos of the country's unresolved electio


At least seven bombs ripped through apartment buildings across Baghdad Tuesday and another struck a market, killing at least 50 people and wounding more than 180, authorities said.

The explosions were the latest in a five-day spree of attacks in and around the capital that have killed at least 119 people. Several bombs were planted inside empty apartments, the government said.

Attack derails goods train in Russian Caucasus-Dagestan railway blast linked to Moscow metro attacks: official

 
 The television frame taken on April 4, 2010 shows the spot of incident near the Inchkhe station in Dagestan's Karabudakhkentsky district, Russia, April 4, 2010. An explosion derailed eight cars of a cargo train in Russia's North Caucasian republic of Dagestan early Sunday, the Itar-Tass news agency reported



Militants have stepped up attacks in recent months throughout Russia's Caucasus region

An explosive device placed on a railway line derailed a goods train early Sunday in the troubled North Caucasus region of Dagestan, Russian news agencies reported.

At 3:50 am (2350 GMT Saturday), an explosive device blew up on Makhachkala rail line, a spokesman for the FSB secret services in Dagestan told the Interfax news agency.

"As a result eight carriages and an engine derailed. There were no dead or injured," the FSB spokesman said.

Investigators have opened a criminal probe into terrorism, arms trafficking and illegal production of weapons and explosives, Interfax reported, citing Makhachkala's interior ministry's transport police.

A senior special forces official in the North Caucasus told the RIA Novosti news agency that the attack appeared to be linked to the March 29 double suicide bombings in the Moscow metro that killed 40 people.

"The first results of an investigation started early Sunday suggest that this explosion is a continuation of a terrorist attack by North Caucasus rebels that began March 29," the unnamed official told RIA Novosti.

The Moscow attacks were followed by two suicide bombings on Wednesday in the town of Kizlyar in Dagestan that killed 12 people including nine police.

The latest explosion was caused by a device equivalent to five kilograms (11 pounds) of TNT, while a "booby trap" device placed a few metres away contained the equivalent of one kilogram of TNT, the FSB spokesman told Interfax.

A passenger train from the Siberian city of Tyumen to Baku was due to pass along the track two hours after the attack. It has been halted while the tracks are repaired, Interfax reported.

Militants have stepped up attacks in recent months throughout Russia's Caucasus region, where Islamist fighters have been battling pro-Kremlin local authorities and Russian security forces in a sporadic insurgency.

The "Caucasus Emirate" Islamist group, led by Doku Umarov, has claimed responsibility for the Moscow metro bombings and also for the bombing of the Nevsky Express high-speed train in November, which left 28 people dead.

The railway blast that derailed a cargo train in Dagestan was linked to the recent terrorist attacks that rocked Moscow downtown metro and the North Caucasian republic of Dagestan last week, a source with Russian security department disclosed Sunday.

Preliminary investigation suggested the railway explosion was a continuation of terrorist attacks by North Caucasus rebels that began on March 29, the unnamed official told the RIA Novosti news agency.

Investigation showed there were two explosions along the railway, according to the Federal Security Service (FSB).

The first explosion was caused by a device equivalent to five kg of TNT, creating a 110 by 25 centimeter crater. Another device, placed a few meters away and containing the equivalent of one kg of TNT, was intended to target the investigators, an FSB spokesperson said.

An explosion derailed eight cars of a cargo train in Russia's North Caucasian republic of Dagestan early Sunday. No casualties were reported.

The latest explosion followed the Moscow metro terrorist attack that killed 40 people and twin blasts in the Dagestani town of Kizlyar, which killed 12 people including nine police officers.

A Chechen rebel group, led by Doku Umarov, has claimed responsibility for the Moscow metro bombings. Russian security authorities believed the recent bombings were all plotted by the same group.

The real Hurt Locker hero: Medal for British bomb expert who defused 93 devices survives.

Decorated: Captain Wayne Owers with his medals - the Queen's Gallantry Medal is on the left.Brave: Captain Owers, who has spent 20 years in the Army, at his base today

Painstaking: Captain Wayne Owers uncovers an IED during his tour in Afghanistan

Badlands: British troops face constant attacks in Helmand Province (file image)

A lonely job: Captain Owers makes safe a live bomb in Afghanistan

When two-year-old Poppy Owers asks her father what he did in Afghanistan, his answer will make her very proud.

Despite seeing colleagues suffer dreadful injuries, Captain Wayne Owers risked his life 93 times to defuse Taliban bombs, saving countless lives in a remarkable six-month tour.

Relying on his wits and courage, rather than protective gear and specialist equipment, Capt Owers's bravery in Afghanistan makes him the most prolific bomb destroyer in the history of the Army.
His average of one improvised explosive device (IED) defused every two days between March and August last year is the highest strike rate recorded by the Ministry of Defence.

Now Capt Owers, 39, who lives in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, with his wife Sukie, 37, and their daughter Poppy, will receive the Queen's Gallantry Medal later this year for his bravery.

Capt Owers, who has served in the Army for 20 years, including tours in Iraq, Bosnia, Oman, Kosovo and Northern Ireland, said his job had pushed him 'to the limit', both mentally and physically.

He said: 'Everything is down to luck and to me numbers aren't significant.

'The best bomb disposal officer in the world could stand on an undetected bomb and it would be game over.

'The only way numbers are relevant is in the feeling that the more bombs you defuse, the more likely it seems that something could go horribly wrong.
But you have to be confident, and not let yourself think about what could happen.

'People ask me how I managed to get up every day and do that job, but it's different when you're actually out in Afghanistan and in that situation.

'You just have to get on with it and be as confident as possible. We all just had to knuckle down.
I used to enjoy the job when I first went out. But when that first bomb went off, I started to get a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

'It really hit me when I saw my comrades get injured.'

During his tour of duty with the Royal Logistic Corps, Capt Owers saw comrades suffer horrendous

injuries. An explosion in May led to a colleague losing two legs and an arm. Two months later, Capt Owers was standing next to Corporal Jonny Wallace as he had his leg ripped open after stepping on a device.

Capt Owers said: 'He was handing me a piece of equipment - that's how close I was. It just went bang and I flew backwards. I didn't break a fingernail - I was very lucky.'

Lance Corporal Davie Timmins, Capt Owers's bodyguard, lost his right eye and hearing in his right ear in the explosion, in which he swallowed his own tongue.

L/Cpl Timmins, himself a Queen's Gallantry Medal recipient, said: 'I was losing a lot of blood but Capt Owers pulled my tongue out of my mouth, sat me up and whacked me on the back several times, saying, "don't die on me".'

Only 600 Queen's Gallantry Medals have been awarded since 1974.

An MoD spokesman said: 'This officer often took greater risks than normally permitted - relying on his wits and courage instead of a protective suit and specialist equipment.'

He added that Capt Owers's 'inspirational actions' had 'enabled countless missions to succeed and directly saved innumerable lives. His courage and gallantry is worthy of the very highest level of formal recognition.'

Capt Owers is now based in Britain and teaches others how to become bomb disposal experts.

Taliban say Kandahar blasts 'a warning to Western troops'-South Afghanistan blasts kill at least 27: health official

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The government said the attackers aimed to blow open Kandahar's prison and free its inmates, including militants


Kandahar was hit by five blasts on March 13





Kandahar was the Taliban's base during their rule of the country, which ended with the US-led invasion

A series of suicide attacks in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar killed at least 27 people on Saturday, a senior official said, in the country's deadliest assault so far this year.

Kandahar authorities appealed for all health workers to immediately report for duty and for citizens to go to health centres to donate blood.

"We have now received 27 bodies and there are at least 52 people wounded, all figures include civilians and policemen," Abdul Qayoom Pukhla, Kandahar's public health director told AFP.

An official with an international aid organisation, who did not want to be identified, said there were 30 dead at Kandahar's Mirwais hospital, but the figure could not be immediately confirmed with city officials.

"We are in urgent need," said an announcement on local television appealing for residents to donate blood and all doctors and nurses to report to the hospital to offer help.

The attack comes as tens of thousands of extra troops are arriving in Afghanistan as part of a new US-led counter-insurgency strategy aimed at speeding an end to the war on the Taliban uprising, now in its ninth year.

The first major offensive of the new strategy is taking place in Helmand province, neighbouring Kandahar province, and US military leaders say Taliban strongholds in Kandahar are among future targets.

The explosions began around 8:00 pm (1530 GMT), interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashery told AFP earlier.

An AFP reporter in the city said windows in buildings across a large area of the city had been shattered by the force of the blasts.

A police officer with the provincial police headquarters, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been a total of five explosions at different locations around the city.

"There were five suicide attacks using bicycles and motorbikes in Kandahar city," he said.

"One happened close to the provincial prison, the second one next to the Red Mosque," which is near the home of President Hamid Karzai's brother Wali Karzai, the elected leader of the Kandahar provincial council, he said.

Another attack took place close to provincial police headquarters, another near the home of Gul Agha Shairzai, former Kandahar provincial governor and now governor of Nangahar province, the police officer added.

The interior ministry's Bashery said the city's main prison was one of the main targets of what appears to have been a coordinated series of attacks bearing the hallmarks of the Taliban.

Up to 1,000 Taliban inmates escaped from the Sarpoza prison in June 2008 after a brazen suicide attack blew open the front gates and destroyed the walls.

BBC television said a Taliban spokesman had claimed responsibility for Saturday's carnage.

Kandahar was the site in late August of a massive truck bomb that killed 43 people and injured another 65, most of them civilians, in the deadliest attack for Afghanistan in 2009.

Taliban denials of involvement in that attack were dismissed as the militants often distance themselves from operations that claim high numbers of civilian lives.

The city, capital of the eponymous province, is symbolic of the Taliban uprising blighting the country. It is the seat of the movement and was its capital during the extremists' rule which ended in 2001 when US-led troops invaded.

Remnants of the movement have since regrouped to wage an increasingly deadly insurgency, which last year killed more than 500 foreign troops.

The insurgents have supplemented suicide vehicles -- usually sedans and off-road vehicles -- with roadside bombs, which have taken an enormous toll on the foreign troops leading the fight.

US President Barack Obama and NATO allies have pledged to boost troops to 150,000, from 121,000, by August this year, with most of the new deployments headed to the volatile south.

The first test of the new tactic is taking place in a poppy-growing plain of central Helmand, where Taliban militants have for years controlled the Marjah farming region along with drug traffickers.

Helmand is the source of most of the world's heroin in an illicit industry worth up to three billion dollars a year, which funds the insurgency and has transformed Afghanistan into a narco-state.

Afghan, US and NATO leaders have made clear that Kandahar is also slated for military operations aimed at paving the way for the reestablishment of Afghan government control.

Thirty-five people were killed in an assault on Kandahar described by the Taliban as a pre-emptive response to Western plans to eradicate them from the strategic city, officials said Sunday.

A series of massive explosions rocked the southern city late Saturday in what appeared one of the biggest coordinated assaults by the militants since their insurgency began more than eight years ago.

The governor of Kandahar province said he had requested more troops to help secure the city from further attacks by the Taliban, who regard it as their spiritual centre.

Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashery said the attackers aimed to blow open Kandahar's prison and free its inmates, including militants.

He said the dead comprised 13 police officers and 22 civilians, and that another 57 people were injured.

The attack came as tens of thousands of extra troops are arriving in Afghanistan as part of a new counter-insurgency strategy aimed at concluding the US-led war on the Taliban.

Among the injured were 40 civilians -- including six women and three children -- and 17 police officers. Forty-two houses close to the city's prison and its police headquarters were destroyed or badly damaged.

"Initial information shows that after the prison attack the enemy attacked locations and routes that end up at or are en route to the prison in an effort to prevent police from going and securing the prison," Bashery said.

President Hamid Karzai branded the perpetrators "enemies of Islam and Afghanistan".

"Those who do not respect Islamic values and act against them no doubt will be cursed by God and will go to hell," he said in a statement.

The city was hit by five blasts at 8:00 pm (1530 GMT) on Saturday. The first, caused by a huge suicide car bomb, occurred outside the prison and was followed by a similar blast outside provincial police headquarters.

Three other explosions were probably also suicide attacks, Bashery said.

"Most of the police casualties were outside the police headquarters where officers had stopped and surrounded the vehicle laden with explosives as it detonated," he said.

Early Sunday police seized eight explosive-packed suicide vests and three rockets from a house near the prison. The Taliban plan appeared to be to first break into the prison, then use suicide vests and rockets to burst open cells and free prisoners, Bashery said.

A Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, told AFP the attack was a response to comments by the commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan that Kandahar would be targeted in military efforts to eradicate the Taliban.

Kandahar was the Taliban's base during their rule of the country, which ended with the US-led invasion in 2001.

"This was an answer to General (Stanley) McChrystal, who announced Operation Omaid in Kandahar," Ahmadi said, using the name of the battle plan.

"This was to sabotage the operation and to show we can strike anywhere, any time we want."

Kandahar governor Turyalai Wisa said at least 10 people attending a wedding party were among the dead. Rescue workers were still searching the rubble.

He told reporters he had asked the Kabul government to send more forces to improve security.

"We have asked the central government to send us more security forces, especially intelligence workers, and they have accepted our request in principle," he said.

Up to 1,000 Taliban inmates escaped from Kandahar's Sarpoza prison in June 2008 after a suicide attack blew open the gates and destroyed the walls.

Another explosion took place early Sunday close to the Kandahar office of a Japanese construction company, injuring five employees -- four of them Pakistanis and one an Afghan.

The first major offensive of the current war strategy is taking place in Helmand province, neighbouring Kandahar province.

Visiting Afghanistan last week, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told troops to brace for a tough fight as generals lay their plans to battle the Taliban in Kandahar.

The US and NATO are deploying an extra 30,000 troops over coming months, bringing to 150,000 the total number of foreign troops in Afghanistan, concentrated on the southern Taliban strongholds.

Further west in Farah province, where Taliban activity has escalated in the past year, police chief Mohammad Faqir Askar said nine Taliban including three Arabs were killed Saturday by Afghan and coalition forces in Gulistan district.