Kabul: A car bomb killed five people in
Afghanistan on Wednesday, as the Iranian president and the defence
secretary of Iran's arch-foe, the United States, paid duelling
visits to the war-torn country.
The attack killed Afghan security personnel at a security
post in Paktika, the eastern province which has become a
flashpoint for a Taliban insurgency now in its ninth year and
which borders militant strongholds in Pakistan.
Militants fired eight rockets at the post after the
bombing, and it was not immediately clear if the number of
casualties would increase, provincial police chief Dawlat Khan
Zadran said to a news agency.
Late yesterday a suicide bomber targeted a NATO-Afghan
border police compound in neighbouring Khost province, killing
two foreign soldiers in an attack claimed by the Taliban.
Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's arrival in Kabul was
confirmed by the Afghan government as Gates visited a training
centre for Afghan soldiers on the outskirts of the capital.
Gates is on the second day of a visit to review a surge
of US and NATO troops set to bring the number of foreign
forces in Afghanistan to 150,000 by the summer in a last-ditch
effort to end the increasingly costly conflict.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of
US-led troops from Afghanistan, on Iran's eastern border,
while US officials have long accused Iran of maintaining links
to Islamist insurgents in the country.
Speaking to reporters at the Camp Blackhorse training
centre, Gates said the United States wanted Afghanistan to
have "good relations" with all its neighbours.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 19:01