Six U.S. soldiers were killed and more than a dozen U.S. and Afghan troops were wounded Sunday when a van packed with explosives was detonated at a new jointly operated outpost in southern Afghanistan.
The soldiers were inside a mud-walled building near the village of Sangsar, north of the Arghandab River, when the bomber drove up to one of the walls and exploded his charge.
The explosion blasted a hole in the thick wall, causing the roof to collapse on the soldiers inside. Others quickly arrived and clawed and pulled at the waist-deep rubble to free the buried troops.
The building had been occupied by the Americans and Afghans for only a few days, a U.S. official said.
Gen. Abdul Hameed, a commander in the Afghan National Army, said his soldiers had tried to stop the van but its driver ignored them and rammed the vehicle into the building.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing. "We have killed numbers of Americans and Afghan soldiers and wrecked and ruined their security check post," a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said by phone. "We will carry out similar attacks in the future."
In addition to the six Americans who were killed, four U.S. soldiers were wounded. Despite the Taliban's claim, it appeared that no Afghan soldiers had been killed.
IRAQI SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 17
A suicide bomber blew up his car Sunday outside Iraqi government offices in the city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killing 17 people, including women and elderly people waiting to collect welfare checks, officials said.
