Suicide bomber kills NATO and Afghan troops

Attack at base in eastern province claims at least lives, a day after the assassination of an Afghan police chief.

A suicide bomber wearing an Afghan security-forces uniform has blown himself up at the entrance to a military base in eastern province of Laghman, killing five foreign soldiers and at least four Afghan soldiers, according to sources. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed in a statement on Saturday the deaths of five soldiers. It is the highest toll of foreign soldiers in a single incident in several months. General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, an Afghan defence ministry spokesman, said a man on foot detonated his vest packed with explosives about 7:30am local time at the entrance to the base, which is shared by Afghan and international forces. "The attacker had the Afghan security force uniform on and that gave him the opportunity to reach the entrance to the base and carry out the attack," Azimi said. Baz Mohammad Sherzad, the director for health in nearby Nangarhar province, said the bodies of the four Afghan soldiers were brought to a hospital in Jalalabad. He said many others were wounded in the blast. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack. In an e-mail to reporters, Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said the bomber was from Day Kundi province in central Afghanistan. Police chief assassinated The attack comes a day after Khan Mohammad Mujahid, the police chief of Kandahar, the capital of the southern Kandahar province, was killed in a suicide attack. Afghanistan's interior ministry confirmed to Al Jazeera that at least two other senior police officers were killed in the attack, one of them an anti-terrorism officer, which took place just outside the heavily guarded police headquarters. A suicide bomber penetrated the defences of the police headquarters in Kandahar city, a spokesman for the Kandahar governor said. "Initial information shows that the police chief and two other policemen were killed inside his office," Zalmay Ayoubi, the spokesman, said. Shir Shah, the province's deputy police chief, said: "The suicide attacker had strapped explosives to his body. "He detonated himself at the gate of Kandahar police headquarters. Police chief Khan Mohammad Mujahid has been martyred, [and] two policemen have been injured." Yusuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said one of its members was behind the fatal attack. "He had disguised himself as a policeman and shot the police chief with his pistol, hugged him and then detonated himself," Ahmadi said. Dangerous province Mujahid was one of the most prominent government targets in Kandahar - one of Afghanistan's most dangerous provinces and the spiritual heartland of the Taliban. He had survived two previous attacks, one on his home and one on his motorcade as it travelled through Kandahar city. "[Mujahid] was appointed by [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai about a year and a half ago, particularly to put an end to the rise of the Taliban. And he managed to make some successes, particularly in the Arghandab district," Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra reported from Kabul.

Source: Agencies