U.S.-led raid, suicide bomber kill at least 12 Afghans

[maddezmom]

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led troops killed at least four people, including a teenage girl, in a raid in southeastern Afghanistan on Tuesday and a suicide bomber killed eight more in the south, residents, officials and coalition forces said.

The target of the suicide bomber was the governor of Helmand, Mohammad Daud, who escaped unhurt, the officials said.

Four police, two army soldiers and two civilians were killed in the attack in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand, a Taliban stronghold and the main drug producing region of the world's leading heroin producer.

"It was a suicide attack and the target was the governor," Helmand police chief Mohammad Nabi Mullahkhail said.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061212/wl_nm/afghan_violence_dc

[Eugene]

1. BBC: Dispute over 'terrorist' deaths

Last Updated: Tuesday, 12 December 2006, 17:03 GMT

Dispute over 'terrorist' deaths

Relatives of four men killed by Afghan and US-led troops in east
Afghanistan say they were all innocent men.

A 13-year-old girl was also killed in the raid in Khost province,
which a US-led coalition statement said was aimed at "suspected
terrorists".

-snip-

Security forces had "credible information" that the place was a
refuge for "terrorist facilitators who posed a serious threat to
peace and stability in Afghanistan," coalition spokesman Col
Thomas Collins said

-snip-

Local people contacted by the BBC said the dead men and dead girl
were all members of the same extended family.

They said one of them was a policemen and that none of them had
links with the Taleban or Al Qaeda.

-snip-

Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6171191.stm

[maddezmom]

2. is this becoming more of an occurrence or is the press finally reporting it

:shrug: