Suicide attack kills 4 in southeastern Afghanistan; crowd protests civilian deaths

Suicide attack kills 4 in southeastern Afghanistan

KABUL — A suicide bomber attacked private security guards while they were at a bazaar in southeastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing four Afghans and wounding 12, the government said.

Two of the dead and five of the wounded worked for the U.S. Protection and Investigations security firm, an Interior Ministry statement said. The other victims were civilians.

The Houston-based company could not immediately be reached for comment.

The suicide attacker, who was on foot, targeted the guards at a bazaar in Sahjoy district of Zabul province, the ministry said.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, witnesses said a crowd blocked a main road in Logar province, west of Kabul, and burned several trucks to protest what they said were civilian deaths in NATO operations. Logar is a strategic province because it controls southern land routes into Kabul, allowing weapons, explosives and fighters to move into the capital.

Hundreds of people gathered Sunday in Logar, hours after NATO said coalition troops killed several insurgents and captured a Taliban sub-commander. The protesters burned several trucks they said were carrying fuel for international troops.

“The people are very angry, they are saying these people killed are innocent civilians,” provincial spokesman Din Mohammad Darwesh told The Associated Press.

Civilian deaths caused by U.S. and other international forces are highly sensitive in Afghanistan. Public outrage over such deaths prompted the top commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal last year to tighten the rules on the use of airstrikes and other weaponry if civilians are at risk.

Last week, hundreds of residents in Logar protested another NATO operation, saying they were not convinced the victims were actually Taliban fighters.