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US-led forces escape suicide attack, troops kill 13 militants: officials

Agence France-Presse | 12/03/2008 5:22 PM

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KABUL - A convoy of US-led troops narrowly escaped a suicide attack Wednesday as coalition forces killed 13 militants in two separate incidents in Afghanistan, officials said.

A suicide attacker detonated his explosives-laden vehicle near a convoy of coalition forces under US command in the Surkh Rod district of Nangarhar province, district governor Sayed Ali Akbar told AFP, causing no casualties.

"The suicide attack was against the coalition forces but did not cause any casualties or damage to the military convoy," said Akbar.

Meanwhile a joint Afghan army and coalition forces reconnaissance patrol was ambushed by militants in the Nad Ali district in the restive Helmand province on Tuesday sparking a clash, a US military statement said.

"Afghan National Security Forces and Coalition forces killed seven insurgents in the Nad Ali district," said the statement.

Separately also on Tuesday, US-led troops killed three Taliban fighters believed to coordinate and direct militant "terrorist" activities in Andar district of southern Ghazni province.

"As the force searched the compound the three militants ... attempted to engage the force. Coalition forces engaged the militants with small-arms fire, and killed them," the coalition force said.

In another incident three militants who were planting a roadside bomb in Jani Khail district of Paktia province were fired at by locals which detonated the bomb and killed all three, an Afghan defense ministry press statement said. There are around 70,000 foreign troops under NATO and US command in Afghanistan fighting a rising Taliban insurgency alongside the Afghan security forces.