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Third bomb attack in 3 days hits southern Afghanistan, killing 1 civilian and wounding 4
Afghanistan Violenc 5292377
Afghan police officials look on damaged road after a car bomb explosion in Kandahar province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday, Feb, 19, 2008. A car bomb explosion Tuesday near a police compound in southern Afghanistan killed one civilian and wounded four, a police official said. It was the third attack in Kandahar province in three days. The bomb placed in a taxi, was triggered remotely about 30 seconds after a police convoy had passed, said Jan Mohammad, a police officer at the blast site in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan's largest city and the Taliban's former stronghold. He said one civilian was killed and four were wounded. No police were caught up in the blast. - photo by Associated Press
    KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A car bomb exploded near a police compound Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, killing at least one civilian and wounding four, a police official said. It was the third attack in Kandahar province in as many days.
    The car bomb was apparently triggered remotely, said police officer Jan Mohammad, who was at the bombing scene in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan’s largest city and the Taliban’s former stronghold.
    More than 100 people were killed by a suicide bomber just outside Kandahar city Sunday, while 38 died Monday at a market near the border with Pakistan when a suicide car bomb explosion targeted a Canadian military convoy.
    The death toll from those two bombings, about 140, made it the deadliest spate of militant attacks in post-Taliban Afghanistan. The back-to-back blasts could also indicate that insurgents are now willing to inflict high civilian casualties to further weaken the Kabul government.
    Christopher Dell, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said the increase in terror attacks by insurgents showed the Taliban’s ‘‘fundamental weakness.’’
    ‘‘Because they cannot stand and fight and because they have been rejected by the people, they are increasingly relying on terror to pursue their agenda,’’ he said during a visit to the central province of Wardak.
    Though attacks occasionally have killed dozens, insurgents in Afghanistan have generally sought to avoid targeting civilians, unlike attacks that have scarred Iraq in recent years.
    The stretch of bombings comes amid warnings that Afghanistan this year could fall victim to even more violence than in 2007, when a record 6,500 people — mostly militants — were killed. The U.S., with a record high 28,000 soldiers in the country, is sending 3,200 more Marines in April.
    ———
    Associated Press writer Fisnik Abrashi in Wardak, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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