KABUL --- A suicide bomber wearing an Afghan border policeman's uniform blew himself up Thursday at a U.S. base near the Pakistani frontier, wounding five Americans, an Afghan official said. 

The spokesman for Paktia province, Roullah Samoun, said the attack occurred after sundown in a barracks at a U.S. facility in the Dand aw Patan district in eastern Afghanistan, about 35 miles (70 kilometers) east of Gardez.

He did not identify the base by name or say what kind personnel are stationed there.

A U.S. statement said "several" U.S. service members were injured in an explosion at a joint U.S.-Afghan outpost in Paktia but gave no further details.

On Dec. 30 a Jordanian believed to be a double agent blew himself up at a CIA base in another border province, Khost, killing seven agency employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer.

The attack reported Thursday occurred about 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Taliban town of Marjah, which is under siege by U.S. and Afghan troops. 

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan - U.S. troops and their Afghan and NATO allies are planning their biggest joint offensive since the Afghan war's start, targeting a town in the volatile south known as a Taliban stronghold and a hub of their lucrative opium trade, officers said Wednesday.

No date for the start of the offensive has been released for security reasons. But U.S. commanders have said they plan to capture the town of Marjah, 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul, this winter.

It is to be the first major offensive since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and many of the Marines set to participate arrived as part of the surge.

Up to 125,000 people are believed to live in the district around Marjah, an agricultural center in Helmand province surrounded by a maze of irrigation canals built with American aid in the 1950s and 1960s. About 80,000 people live in or around the town itself.

Between 600 and 1,000 Taliban and foreign fighters are thought to operate in the area, U.S. officers say. NATO officials won't say how many NATO and Afghan troops have been earmarked for the offensive, but they are expected to vastly outnumber the Taliban and their allies.


In Kabul, NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay told reporters that the operation will include at least 1,000 Afghan police and thousands of Afghan soldiers as well as thousands of NATO troops. U.S. officers say the offensive will involve the highest number of Afghan forces in any joint operation to date.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi did not specifically mention Marjah, but told reporters in Kabul that a large operation is coming "in the near future" in Helmand. He said it will "separate the local people from the terrorists in the area."

Fighting escalated in Helmand in 2006, and the sprawling southern province was transformed into one of the deadliest parts of the country for NATO forces.

Last spring, thousands of U.S. Marines arrived in the province to reinforce the British military. British and American forces launched twin operations to try to stabilize the area before the August presidential election, in which turnout in Helmand was extremely low.

U.S. officials have spoken publicly about plans to take Marjah in hopes that many civilians will leave the town, along with Taliban fighters who are not deeply committed to the insurgency.

Commanders believe support of the local population is crucial to establishing an Afghan administration as quickly as possible and to help NATO troops detect the numerous improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that they expect to face in Marjah.

Two U.S. service members were killed by a bomb Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, but NATO did not specify the precise location.

Col. George Amland, the deputy commander of Marines in Helmand province, said the Taliban force includes "hundreds of idiots running around Marjah right now waiting to aggregate" and confront the NATO and Afghan troops.

He expects the Taliban ranks will "dwindle very quickly into a very manageable number" by the time the fighting begins.

Amland dismissed most of the Taliban force as just "in the Taliban's employ" and said that local opium poppy growers and opium dealers will abandon the militants quickly.

That leaves the "dyed-in-the-wool Taliban," Amland told reporters in Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine Corps base in southern Afghanistan. He estimates there are "a couple of hundred of those that are rallying the rest of the cause." 

The militants are believed to include about 100 to 150 foreign fighters, including Arabs, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens and a few Yemenis, said Maj. Jundish Jang Baz, of the Afghan National Army.

The problem, he added, is that NATO isn't completely sure whether it can rely on all the forces supposed to be on its side. Jang Baz said the locally hired Afghan police were less than reliable.

"We think they're working with al-Qaida in Marjah," Jang Baz said, adding that he expected the Taliban to "scatter like ants."

"The real challenge is to make sure they don't flee with enough weapons to start another fight somewhere else," he said.

Azimi also said an investigation was still under way into a NATO airstrike that killed four Afghan soldiers last week in Wardak province.

The fighting broke out when a joint U.S.-Afghan force came under fire near a remote highway outpost and called in the airstrike. Both sides have said it appeared to be a case of mistaken identity.

The U.S. Army Special Operations Command denied claims by Afghan officials that the troops involved were special forces. 

KABUL - The U.S. military blamed "shortcomings in command oversight" and delays in closing a remote outpost in northeastern Afghanistan for an October ambush that left eight Americans dead, according to a report released Friday.


The Oct. 3 gunbattle that broke out when hundreds of insurgents stormed the base with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and guns in mountainous Nuristan province near the Pakistan border was one of the worst ground attacks of the war.


An investigation found the soldiers "heroically repelled a complex attack from an enemy force of 300" after calling in air support. When the fighting was over, about 150 insurgents were dead but so were eight Americans and three Afghan soldiers.


A report released by the U.S. military in Afghanistan recommended administrative actions "to address shortcomings in command oversight" that contributed to the attack.

U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander, also has taken appropriate action regarding Army personnel involved and issued guidance to commanders and noncommissioned officers at all levels to try to prevent similar attacks in the future.


The command did not identify those involved or specify any punitive measures, citing privacy laws.


The report said critical intelligence and other assets had been diverted to assist combat operations in other areas and necessary improvements for force protection were not made because the outpost was due to be closed.


"There were inadequate measures taken by the chain of command, resulting in an attractive target for enemy fighters," according to executive summary of the report.


Insurgents had been able to conduct numerous probing attacks to learn the U.S. force's tactics and procedures as well as the location of weapons systems, barracks and other key infrastructure, it said.


Militants had launched about 47 attacks during the five months that the B Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry, had been deployed at the outpost in Nuristan's Kamdesh district - three times the rate experienced by the previous unit.


The attack underscored the vulnerability of the outposts that are manned by NATO and Afghan forces away from the heavily fortified bases where most of the troops live.


Many of the small bases have been abandoned as part of McChrystal's new strategy to redirect forces to focus on more populated areas to protect civilians and blunt the influence of the Taliban.


According to the report, Combat Outpost Keating had been scheduled for closure in July or August 2009 but was delayed when the assets needed to ferry supplies were diverted to support intense Afghan operations under way in another area.


It added that other intelligence assets were used for the ongoing operation and the search for a missing U.S. soldier in the south.


The U.S. subsequently withdrew from the outpost and destroyed what remained of the camp on Oct. 6 to prevent enemy use, the report said.

KABUL - U.S. Soldiers shot and killed an Afghan cleric as he drove Thursday with his young son near an American base on the eastern edge of Kabul, underscoring the dangers facing civilians despite NATO efforts to minimize casualties.

The shooting occurred as Mohammad Yunus, 36, approached a four-lane highway with one of his sons, according to police and witnesses.

Yunus was struck by four bullets fired at his Toyota Corolla and died on the way to the Wazir Akbar Hospital, according to his son-in-law, Abdul Qadir. His son was not injured. Yunus left two wives and 10 children, Abdul-Qadir said.

NATO said the troops fired at "what appeared to be a threatening vehicle" near Camp Phoenix, an area where suicide attacks are not uncommon, but later described the incident as "regrettable" and promised an investigation.

A shopkeeper who witnessed the shooting said a military convoy was traveling from Kabul toward the eastern city of Jalalabad when the gunner in the lead vehicle opened fire as Yunus pulled onto the same highway.

The 25-year-old shopkeeper, who identified himself only as Aymal, said he heard no warning shots.

NATO said an investigation was under way and appropriate action would be taken to ensure troops complied with policies aimed at protecting civilians. It said Yunus' family would be compensated in accordance with local customs.

In London, President Hamid Karzai called on NATO-led forces to do more to prevent innocent Afghans from being killed and wounded.

"Ladies and gentlemen, regrettably, civilian casualties continue to be a great concern for the people of Afghanistan," he told an international conference on Afghanistan. "We should put the protection of people's lives and property at the top of our agenda."

NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay said despite measures in place to protect Afghans, "regrettable incidents such as this one can occur."

"On behalf of (NATO), I express my sincere regrets for this loss of life and convey my deepest condolences to his family," he said.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Camp Phoenix to protest the killing. They dispersed after police promised the Americans would discuss the death with local elders, according to district police chief Col. Rohullah, who like many Afghans only uses one name.

The cleric's brother, Mohammad Youssef Ajami, said no compensation could make up for the loss of a life.

"It is totally cruel. Mr. Karzai sitting on his throne has no control over the foreign forces," he said in a telephone interview after the funeral in Laghman province. "They should try these Soldiers who shot my brother, who had done nothing wrong and was on a major road in a safe part of Kabul."

A recent U.N. report showed that the number of civilians killed by NATO-led forces has dropped after U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, imposed limits on the use of airstrikes and other measures to protect the population. It said civilian deaths at the hands of the Taliban have increased.

But that hasn't dimmed public outrage as such incidents continue to occur among a population weary of the presence of foreign forces and more than eight years of war.

Also Thursday, a U.S. service member was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, according to the international force. The death brings to at least 26 the number of American deaths in Afghanistan this month, nearly double the 14 killed in all of January last year.

An Afghan policeman also was shot to death by two militants on a motorcycle in the southern city of Kandahar, provincial police chief Gen. Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.

NATO also confirmed as many as 20 suspected militants were killed Wednesday in fighting in northern Afghanistan.

Provincial police said Wednesday 11 insurgents, including two senior commanders, were killed in a joint air-and-ground assault targeting a Taliban compound west of Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province.
Joint forces called in air support after coming under fire from a large number of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades, NATO said in a statement issued Thursday. It said attack aircraft "bombed and strafed insurgents in a tree line," killing 12 to 20 of them.