AP – In this photo taken on Monday, Oct. 11, 2010, US Army soldiers from Scout Platoon 502 Infantry Regiment, …

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KABUL, Afghanistan – A bomb blast killed three NATO troops in western Afghanistan on Thursday, a day after six service members died in a spate of attacks by insurgents in the east and south.

An improvised explosive device killed the three service members Thursday, an alliance statement said, without providing nationalities or giving a specific location where the incident occurred. American, Italian, Spanish, and Lithuanian forces are deployed in western Afghanistan.

In a bloody day for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Wednesday, insurgents killed six service members, including four who died in a single bomb blast in the volatile south of the country.

One service member was killed in the east in an insurgent attack and another died in the south in a separate roadside bombing — the weapon of choice for militants in countering a large-scale NATO-Afghan operation in the region.

This has been the deadliest year for international troops in the nine-year Afghan conflict. At least 37 NATO service members have been killed so far this month. More than 2,000 have died since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Troop numbers have been ramped up in the past year to turn the screws on the insurgents. Fighting has intensified and casualties have mounted. The escalating toll has shaken the commitment of many NATO countries, with calls growing to start drawing down troops quickly.

Daily violence continues unabated throughout much of Afghanistan. The focus of the U.S.-led war — which entered its 10th year last week — has been on the south, but coalition troops are increasingly fighting resilient militants in the west, east, and north.

NATO said Thursday that two insurgent leaders were killed in a raid in eastern Ghazni province. Afghan and NATO forces took heavy small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire as they moved in on a compound in Rashidan district Wednesday, an alliance statement said.

Troops returned fire, killing Mohammad Ali and Mowlana Fatih Sahib — described by NATO as senior Taliban leaders. "Several" other insurgents were killed, it said.

The Taliban have accused NATO of inventing Taliban leaders and alleging they were killed or captured in a propaganda campaign to demoralize the insurgents.

Elsewhere Thursday, Taliban fighters ambushed a supply convoy in southern Kandahar city, wounding three civilian drivers in a hail of automatic weapon fire. The militants later set three trucks ablaze before fleeing, said driver Gul Janan from his hospital bed.

The nearly 150,000 international troops and 220,000 Afghan government security forces — whose recruitment and training has been put on a fast track — are still struggling to gain the upper hand against an estimated 30,000 insurgents.

Meanwhile, a senior NATO official speaking in Brussels said U.S. and NATO forces are helping top Taliban leaders sit down for talks with the Afghan government as a step toward political reconciliation.

Some discussions between the government and insurgents have taken place in the capital Kabul, the official said, where Taliban leaders would not dare to travel without NATO approval.

The account was the most detailed yet of the U.S. and NATO role in clandestine talks that officials say have been happening for several weeks.

The official on Wednesday spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe the subject publicly.

The U.S and NATO are not mediating the talks, only allowing for safe passage of Taliban officials, U.S. officials said.

The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has acknowledged some high-level contact with the Taliban, though the extent of the discussions has not been clear.

NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, offered a cautiously optimistic assessment Wednesday of the transition of security duties to Afghan forces.

"There are areas of the country that are reasonably secure already, and Afghan security forces are capable of handling security already," his civilian counterpart, Ambassador Mark Sedwill, told reporters in Brussels.

The process should be completed by 2014, although some allied troops — including special forces and trainers — will remain in Afghanistan after that date, Sedwill said.

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Posted by biginla at 8:43 AM BST

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Play Video AP  – More NATO-bound tankers burn in Pakistan

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AFP – Pakistani firefighters try to extinguish burning NATO oil tankers following the gunmen attack on the …

ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Monday for a pre-dawn attack on tankers carrying fuel to Afghanistan for U.S. and other NATO forces, left vulnerable on the side of the road after Pakistan shut down a key border crossing.

About a dozen militants peppered the vehicles parked at a truck stop on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad with automatic gunfire. Some 20 trucks went up in flames and four people were killed and seven injured, authorities said.

Hours later, gunmen attacked and burned two other trucks carrying NATO supplies in southwest Pakistan, killing one driver.

There have been four such attacks since Pakistan last Thursday shuttered its main border crossing into Afghanistan to NATO supply convoys in apparent reaction to a series of alleged NATO incursions, including a helicopter attack that killed three Pakistani soldiers. Traffic has since been backing up at various points along the route from the southern port city of Karachi to the crossing at Torkham — where scores of trucks remain stranded and vulnerable to attack in the volatile Khyber Pass.

In Brussels, NATO's Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen apologized to Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi for the firing incident, saying it was "unintended" and that he hoped the border crossing would be opened again soon.

"There is a joint investigation under way," Fogh Rasmussen said. "We will determine what happened, and draw the right lessons."

Although Pakistan says the Torkham blockade will soon be lifted, the latest attacks and the Taliban threat to launch more assaults seemed certain to raise the stakes in the closure, which has exacerbated tensions between Washington and Islamabad. Convoys crossing from Pakistan bring fuel, military vehicles, spare parts, clothing and other non-lethal supplies for foreign troops.

"We are trying our best to protect the places where are vehicles have accumulated, and we are not dispatching any more trucks from Karachi for now," said Shakir Khan Afridi, president of the Khyber Transport Association, a major umbrella organization representing some 7,000 truckers.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the Islamabad attack in a telephone call to an Associated Press reporter.

Spokesman Azam Tariq said a new wing of the group had been created to strike the convoys and that the attacks "would continue until the supplies are completely stopped."

Trucks moving supplies from Karachi through Pakistan into Afghanistan make frequent stops along the way for their drivers to rest along the several-day journey, and Islamabad police chief Kalim Imam said it was impossible for police or local authorities to protect them all the time.

"This entire thing is very vulnerable for such attacks," he said.

About 150 vehicles are backed up at the Torkham border crossing itself, with hundreds more in nearby areas. Torkham lies some 120 miles (200 kilometers) west of Islamabad.

Trucker Kalam Khan, who has been waiting for five days on his flatbed truck with a container of supplies for the U.S. Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, said drivers are in constant fear.

"If vehicles for Afghanistan are not safe in Islamabad, we could be attacked any time," he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday's second attack on the two trucks heading to the Chaman border crossing in the southwest, which has remained open.

Mohammad Hashim, a government official in the in the southwest district of Kalat where the attack took place — about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of the region's main city of Quetta — said two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on the trucks, then torched the vehicles, killing one driver. The unidentified gunmen fled.

One of the trucks was carrying water while it was not yet clear what the other truck's cargo was, he said.

While NATO and the United States have alternative supply routes into landlocked Afghanistan, the Pakistani ones are the cheapest and most convenient. Most of the coalition's non-lethal supplies are transported over Pakistani soil after being unloaded at docks in Karachi. There are some 140,000 international forces currently in Afghanistan.

In addition to the Torkham and Chaman crossings from Pakistan, NATO also receives supplies via the Central Asian states north of Afghanistan.

Afridi said, however, that some trucks on their way to Chaman have also been unable to get through due to the massive flooding in the region — which left millions homeless and destroyed thousands of miles (kilometers) of roads.

"On that route too, container trucks and oil tankers are stopped at different points but not in very large number," he said.

On Friday, a day after the closure of the Khyber Pass route to NATO and U.S. traffic, there were two attacks on oil tankers headed to the country, one of which was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

The Pakistani Taliban are the country's largest militant group. Based in the northwest, it has claimed responsibility for scores of suicide bombings against Pakistani government and security targets, as well as Western ones. The group has ties with the Taliban movement in Afghanistan that is fighting the U.S.-backed government there.

Striking the supply line now gains the group more media attention than normal and makes the mission in Afghanistan appear vulnerable.

While attacks on convoys in Pakistan give militants a propaganda victory, coalition officials say they do not result in shortages in Afghanistan. Hundreds of trucks still cross into Afghanistan each day.

Some attacks are believed to be the work of criminals, who can sell much of the vehicles, clothes and other goods they carry. Officials have alleged truck owners may be behind some of the incidents, perhaps to claim insurance fraudulently.

On Sunday, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, said the border crossing would be soon reopened.

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Posted by biginla at 1:04 PM BST

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AP – A Pakistan child pedals past a truck, carrying supplies for NATO forces, parked on the roadside in Peshawar, …

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ISLAMABAD – Police say suspected militants have attacked and set on fire at least 20 oil tankers in Pakistan that were en route to NATO and US troops in Afghanistan

The attack early Monday close to the capital Islamabad was the third since Friday.

One of the main routes used by Afghanistan-bound trucks has been closed for days after three Pakistani troops were killed in a helicopter strike by the military alliance in a border area.

Police officer Umer Hayat says two people were killed in Monday's attack.

Posted by biginla at 9:38 PM BST

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