Attacks in Afghanistan Grow More Frequent and Lethal
    By Carlotta Gall
    The New York Times

    Wednesday 27 September 2006

    Kandahar, Afghanistan - Afghanistan suffered two deadly bombings on Tuesday that killed 20 people, providing another sign of the increasing size and power of suicide attacks and roadside bombs by insurgents.

    The more devastating attack occurred when the police stopped a suicide bomber as he approached a security checkpoint near the governor's office in Lashkar Gah, in southern Helmand Province, and he detonated explosives strapped to his chest.

    The bomber killed 18 people, 6 of them policemen and soldiers. The rest of the casualties, including a woman, were civilians who had gathered at a central mosque to sign up for the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, said the police chief of Helmand, Gen. Muhammad Nabi Mullahkhel.

    South of Kabul, the capital, a bomb planted under a bridge struck a NATO military vehicle, killing an Italian soldier and an Afghan child nearby.

    The suicide attack in Lashkar Gah was the second there in a month, and one of more than 60 in Afghanistan this year, United Nations officials said. The tactic was rarely used by insurgents a year ago.

    Civilians increasingly have been paying the price of the more frequent and devastating attacks. More than 150 civilians have been killed by suicide bombings this year, the head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, Tom Koenigs, said recently, before the attacks on Tuesday.

    The bombings, once relatively ineffective, now increasingly claim casualties in the double digits. On Aug. 3, a suicide bomber struck in the district bazaar of Panjwai, near Kandahar, killing 21. A suicide attack killed another 21 people in Lashkar Gah on Aug. 28.

    On Sept. 18, a bomber in Kabul rammed his car into an American military convoy, causing a huge explosion that ripped apart an armored Humvee and killed 16 people, 2 of them American soldiers and the rest passers-by.

    The use of roadside bombs has also increased. Two powerful bombs were laid on roads close to Kabul in recent weeks.

    The bomb bomb near the capital, positioned under a bridge less than 10 miles south of Kabul, also wounded five soldiers and five civilians, according to officials. The hurt civilians were driving in a car behind the convoy.

    Military and intelligence officials in Afghanistan are divided about whether the tactics and technology used in suicide bombings and roadside bombs have been brought from Iraq, where they are so common, or if insurgents here are simply copying those tactics.

    Canadian and American soldiers on operations in the southern province of Kandahar last week said they saw a clear connection with tactics in Iraq. One called it the "Iraqization" of the insurgency here, whether through personal contacts or the Internet.

    Canadian soldiers, for instance, said they recently found a scarecrow by a roadside rigged with explosives. In Iraq, insurgents have rigged corpses beside roads with explosives.

    Suicide bombers are also now using explosive vests, which are far more powerful than before, the soldiers said. In another bombing on Sept. 18, a man on a bicycle who rode up to Canadian soldiers handing out gifts to children in the southern village of Char Kota, in Pashmul, had on a vest rigged with explosives. The detonation killed four soldiers and injured several more who were in full body armor, as well as wounding two dozen children.

    There are signs of more careful training as well. The bomber who killed the governor of Paktia Province on Sept. 10 managed to penetrate security by claiming to have a letter of recommendation addressed to the governor.

    He then threw himself onto the hood of the governor's car, detonating his explosive vest up against the windshield and killing everyone inside the car, according to government and military officials.

    The high level of civilian casualties has appeared to cause a split in the Taliban, with some apparently opposed to suicide bombing, NATO military officials said.

    Taliban fighters who occupied the Panjwai district in July and August tried to distance themselves from the suicide bombing that killed so many civilians and damaged shops in August. They posted leaflets saying that outsiders, or "foreign Taliban," were responsible for the suicide bombing and that such violators would receive capital punishment.

    "They were worried about their image," said Olli-Pekka Nissinen, a NATO media operations officer.

    Villagers and farmers in the Panjwai area, where heavy fighting has taken place over the past three weeks, also blamed foreigners or outsiders for the suicide bombing, and said that ordinary Taliban were just intent on fighting NATO forces.

    A witness of the Sept. 18 suicide bombing in nearby Pashmul, Khair Muhammad, whose two daughters were wounded in the blast, said the bomber appeared to be an Arab.