Afghan president orders forces to Kandahar

Militants have increasingly mounted coordinated suicide bombings in their effort to destabilise the Western-backed government.

KANDAHAR, March 15, 2010 (AFP) - A cabinet minister said Monday that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had ordered extra forces to secure the strategic southern city of Kandahar after coordinated attacks killed 35 people.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Saturday's attacks -- one of the biggest coordinated assaults of their more than eight-year insurgency -- to pre-empt US-led plans to launch military operations in the Kandahar region.

Militants have increasingly mounted coordinated suicide bombings in their effort to destabilise the Western-backed government, underscoring the security challenge facing Karzai and 121,000 US-led NATO troops.

"The Afghan president has ordered new security forces for better security of Kandahar," Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar told reporters during a visit to Kandahar to offer condolences to the families of those killed.

Provincial governor Turyalai Wisa said Sunday he had requested more troops to help secure the city from further attacks by the Taliban.

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

The Afghan interior minister said Monday that military operations in Kandahar would begin "after consultations with tribal elders".

Southern Afghanistan is the heartland of the Taliban-led insurgency. Quelling violence in the region, offering development, creating jobs and expanding government control is seen as vital if the West can end the war.

US President Barack Obama and NATO allies have pledged to boost troop numbers to 150,000 by August, with most of the new deployments headed to the volatile south and a major focus placed on training Afghan troops to take over.

A major campaign has already begun in the Marjah area of the southern province of Helmand, expected to serve as a template for the counter-insurgency due to unfold in Kandahar in coming months, military planners say.

Visiting Afghanistan last week, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told troops to brace for a tough fight as generals laid plans to take the fight to Kandahar, possibly as early as the summer, when enough troops are in place.

Six people, possibly militants, were killed in Kandahar on Monday when they drove over an improvised bomb of the type used by Taliban-linked militants to attack military forces, the provincial government said.

Security forces found Pakistani identity cards and other documents on the victims' bodies that could link them to insurgent groups, it added.

Pakistanis provoke particular suspicion in Afghanistan, where many accuse the neighbouring country of harbouring links with the Taliban and say militants infiltrate the border, fanning the Afghan Taliban insurgency.

Similar bomb blasts killed three civilians in the province of Ghazni, also in the south, the interior ministry said, blaming the attack on the Taliban.

But the government said Monday that Afghan security forces shot dead five men wearing suicide vests and carrying guns who tried to storm government buildings and a bazaar in the east of the country.

The interior ministry said the thwarted attack in Barmal, on the Pakistani border in Paktika province, appeared to be a coordinated attempt to hit several targets at once, along the lines of Saturday's assault in Kandahar.

"The suicide bombers, who were also armed with different types of guns... were killed before reaching their targets," the ministry said in a statement.

Three of the bombers were shot dead "after they were identified" and two others briefly exchanged fire with police before being killed, it said.