Date: May 26th, 2010
Method: Car Bomb
Location: Kandahar, Afghanistan
Death Toll: 0
Injury Toll: 0
Perpetrators: Unconfirmed
The International News reports:
A car bomb exploded Wednesday near a US-run civilian-military base in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar but there were no casualties, police said as Afghan and US troops cordoned off the area.
Regional police chief General Mohammad Shafiq Afzali told foreign news agency the car had been in the parking lot of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), but it was unclear if it was detonated remotely or by a suicide bomber. "There have not been any casualties," he said.
Date: April 27th, 2010
Method: Suicide Bomber, Explosives
Location: Kandahar, Afghanistan
Death Toll: 3
Injury Toll: 35
Perpetrators: Unconfirmed
The Associated Press explains:
Since April 12, at least 20 civilians, including eight children, have been killed in Kandahar, according to an AP count. Local officials, aid workers and contractors for U.S. development projects have been targeted by Taliban fighters trying to disrupt the upcoming military operation, expected to accelerate this summer.
Date: April 26th, 2010
Method: Animal Cart Bomb
Location: Kandahar, Afghanistan
Death Toll: 3 (children)
Injury Toll: 4
Perpetrators: Unconfirmed
The Hindu reports:
The cart was abandoned in front a tribal chief’s residence in the centre of Kandahar city on Monday afternoon and was then remotely detonated, said Zalmai Ayoubi, spokesman for the provincial governor of Kandahar province.
Haji Fazelluddin, the former governor of Spin Boldak district, was not hurt in the attack, but three of his nephews, aged 12 to 14, were killed, he said, adding that two police officers guarding the residence and two civilian passers—by were injured.
Mr. Fazelluddin is an influential tribal elder in the province and one of the main allies of President Hamid Karzai in the region.
Date: April 26th, 2010
Method: Triple Bombing
Location: Kandahar, Afghanistan
Death Toll: 2
Injury Toll: 2
Perpetrators: Unconfirmed (Suspected Taliban)
CNN reports:
"One remote control bomb on the road was detonated while a police convoy was passing on the road. And the second bomb was set in motorbike, on the same road, and that detonated after the first one," said Zalmai Ayoobi, a spokesman for the Kandahar government.
RTE News reports:
Mr Sherzad said he believed he was the target of the attack, in which two civilians died, although he was not in the convoy at the time.
A third blast took place about two hours later but no one was injured.
Kandahar, which is seen as the key battleground in US-led efforts to reverse an insurgency that has lasted nearly nine years, has been the scene of escalating Taliban violence including similar bombings, assassinations and suicide attacks in recent months.
The UN has ordered its staff in Kandahar to stay indoors due to the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the volatile city.
Date: April 19th, 2010
Method: Explosives loaded on donkey cart
Location: Kandahar, Afghanistan
Death Toll: 3 (children)
Injury Toll: 5
Perpetrators: Unconfirmed (suspected Taliban)
"The explosives were loaded onto a donkey cart under a pile of fodder and was detonated remotely," tribal leader Fazluddin Agha told AFP.
"Three children were all my nephews... They were playing with the donkey cart, they had jumped on it (when it blew up outside his heavily-guarded home)."
Agha ran President Hamid Karzai's campaign during last year's presidential elections.
***
The use of animals in insurgent attacks is rare but not unheard of.
***
Taliban-led insurgents regularly deploy crude bombs to attack government, military and civilian targets in their insurgency, now well into its ninth year.Kandahar is seen as the key battleground to reverse the escalating conflict, which is taking an increasing toll on foreign forces and Afghan civilians alike.
Date: April 15th, 2010
Method: Suicide Car Bomb, IED
Location: Kandahar, Afghanistan
Death Toll: 3
Injury Toll: 26
Perpetrators: Unconfirmed
Several News Agencies reported yesterday that as many as 7 British contract workers were feared dead. The most recent article on the attack, published by the Press Association, reports that Kandahar's provincial governor Tooryalai Wesa claims no foreigners were killed in the attack.
[A total of 26 people were injured, 10 of them foreigners, including three Americans and a South African] and three Afghans were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives in southern Afghanistan, authorities have said.
Date: April 15th, 2010
Method: Car Bomb
Location: Kandahar, Afghanistan
Death Toll: 0
Injury Toll: 8
Perpetrators: Suspected Taliban
The Associated Press reports:
Aghalala, a money changer working the street in front of the hotel, said two men pulled up in the car, parked it, and walked away. Five minutes later the white sedan exploded, said Aghalala, who uses only one name.
***
Kandahar is the main city of Afghanistan's volatile south from which the hardline Taliban Islamic militant movement emerged as a political and military force in the early 1990s. NATO forces are expected to launch a major operation in and around the city this summer in a bid to root out insurgents and turn around the nearly nine-year war. The Taliban has reasserted its presence in large parts of the country from which it had faded following the 2001 U.S. invasion that toppled its regime.