Kabul, July 09: A huge explosion in a truck Thursday killed 24 people south of Kabul, including 16 schoolchildren, 4 policemen and 4 bystanders, local officials said, as the death toll among foreign soldiers fighting in Afghanistan rose.
The explosion, which also wounded five civilians, happened in Logar Province when a truck loaded with wood turned over.
When police arrived , militants apparently detonated explosives in the vehicle, causing a blast that scattered debris almost a mile from the scene, officials said.
Attiqullah Lodin, the governor of the province, said that the children had gathered near the overturned truck and were killed when the blast went off.
“Sixteen schoolchildren aged 8 to 12 were killed along with policemen and other civilians,” Mr. Lodin said.
He said two shops close to the blast were completely destroyed and rescue crews were working to try to find victims trapped under the rubble. He predicted that the death toll could rise.
Abul Hamid, the district governor of Mohammad Agha, where the explosion occurred, said the explosives probably had been detonated by remote control. He said the force of the blast had destroyed shops, damaged houses and mangled the bodies of the victims.
The NATO command, meanwhile, said two more of the soldiers in the south of the country had died but did not specify their nationality. The deaths were part of a growing tally among coalition troops, some of them led by 4,000 American Marines moving against the Taliban in the southern Helmand province.
According to figures from the British Defense Ministry in London, British forces have lost seven soldiers in a week — an unusually high number that brought the total since the fall of the Taliban government in late 2001 to 176. Last Monday, seven American soldiers died in a single 24-hour period — the deadliest day for United States forces in Afghanistan in almost a year. Two Canadian soldiers were also been killed in a helicopter crash.
The British casualties have stirred some disquiet among British political leaders, despite the longstanding convention whereby politicians avoid making political capital from the plight of troops on the battlefield.
Nick Clegg, the leaders of the small opposition Liberal Democrats, said Thursday he was “appalled that so many of our soldiers have been killed because of inadequate equipment, and disturbed to hear from experts that we don’t have enough forces to hold and rebuild territory once it has been won.”
British has deployed over 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, many of them locked in what British military experts have called a stalemated campaign against the Taliban in Helmand Province. The latest deployment of American forces is designed to break the stalemate as President Obama commits more American troops to the Afghan war.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr. Clegg said British soldiers had been “relegated to the background” in Helmand after the United States moved its own troops into the area.
“I can only imagine how demoralizing it must be for our troops to feel they have to be bailed out by Uncle Sam,” he said.
–Agencies