4 more US soldiers killed in Afghanistan today

4 US soldier killed in Afghanistan
By AMIR SHAH, AP, Google News, July 6, 2009

KABUL (AP) — A roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan killed four American soldiers Monday, while a suicide attack in the south killed two civilians, officials said.

The bombing in the northern Kunduz province targeted an American military convoy, said Kunduz Gov. Mohammad Omar.

In Berlin, German Defense Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said that Germany was told the dead soldiers were American.

"We received a message today that four American soldiers were killed in" a roadside bomb in the Kunduz area, he said. "There are no further details. So far as we know, it was a mentor team on the road in a Humvee."

Omar said the attack happened in the Ali Abad district of Kunduz province and wounded two Afghan civilians.

In comparison to the country's south and east, northern Afghanistan is relatively quiet. But roadside and other insurgent attacks have been increasing in the last few years.

The attack came after a suicide car bomber blew himself up outside the outer gate of the main NATO base in southern Afghanistan, killing two civilians and wounding 14 other people.

Those wounded near the gates of Kandahar Airfield included 12 civilians and two Afghan soldiers, said Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, the top military commander for southern Afghanistan.

The incidents came as thousands of U.S. Marines in neighboring Helmand province mounted a major offensive against the Taliban. Over the weekend, insurgent attacks killed three British soldiers in the province, a militant stronghold and hub of the vast Afghan drugs trade.