Afghan attacks kill 7 CIA employees, 5 Canadians

Casualty figures have risen as more US forces deploy in Afghanistan under Obama's plan 

Seven American CIA agents and five Canadian soldiers have been killed in two separate attacks in Afghanistan, officials say.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack on the Americans, carried out at a US base in the eastern province of Khost, saying that the attacker was an officer in the Afghan army.

"This deadly attack was carried out by a valorous Afghan army member when the officials [Americans] were busy gaining information about the mujahideen," Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said in an email.

The Afghan defence ministry denied that the bomber was an Afghan army officer.

The suicide bomber reportedly evaded security at the base and detonated an explosive belt in a room used as a fitness centre.

CIA chief's admission

In Washington, Leon Panetta, the CIA's director, said on Thursday the seven killed "were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism".

Among those killed was the chief of the CIA's operation at Forward Operating Base Chapman, the Associated Press news agency has learned.

Several other people, none of them US or Nato troops, were wounded in the explosion, US defence officials said.

"There has been a great deal of confusion when the reports emerged yesterday," Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Kabul on Thursday, said.

"We contacted the spokesperson of Isaf [the International Security Assistance Force] to confirm to us that US soldiers were killed.

"Then he came back to us in half an hour and said there had been a great deal of confusion and actually 'no, these are not US soldiers but civilians'. They are members of the PRT, which is the provincial reconstruction team."

The PRT was established in Afghanistan in 2002 by the US to assist in reconstruction efforts at district and provincial levels.

The US has committed to send hundreds of civilians to support work on development projects that aim to undermine support for the Taliban and other fighters.

But as the security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated, many of the civilians working outside Kabul have retreated to army bases.

Canadian casualties

In Wednesday's second deadly incident, five Canadians were killed in the southern province of Kandahar.

The group, made up of four soldiers and a journalist accompanying them, were visiting community reconstruction projects and were killed when their armoured vehicle was hit by a bomb, the Canadian defence ministry said.

 

Wednesday's deaths brought the Canadian troop toll to 138 since 2007 [GALLO/GETTY]

The journalist, Michelle Lang, worked for The Calgary Herald.

The military has not disclosed the names of the Canadian soldiers because relatives have not all been notified.

Brigadier-General Daniel Menard, commander of multinational forces in Kandahar, said the soldiers were conducting a community security patrol

The Calgary Herald said Lang had been in the country since December 11 and was the first Canadian journalist to die in Afghanistan since Ottawa joined the international mission there in 2002.

The attack was the worst against Canada's military in the country in two years and brought its military deaths in Afghanistan to 138.

Canada has 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, but the mission has become increasingly unpopular at home and it is scheduled to be withdrawn at the end of 2011.

Civilians killed

In another incident, a number of civilians were killed by an air raid by foreign forces in Helmand on Wednesday, Daoud Ahmadi, spokesman for the governor of the southern Afghan province, said.

He did not know how many had died but said an investigation had begun. Nato-led forces declined to make an immediate comment.

 

Protests have taken place in Kabul and other cities against alleged civilian deaths 

The incident is the second report of civilian casualties at the hands of foreign forces in under a week.

Afghan and UN officials say foreign troops killed at least eight civilians, mostly teenagers, in a raid in Kunar, in the country's east, on Saturday, sparking protests around the country.

The Nato-led force said it was questioning the claims of civilian casualties and maintains they were fighters. It has called for a joint investigation with Afghan authorities.

Kai Eide, the UN special representative in Afghanistan, said in a statement on Thursday that the preliminary UN investigation showed "strong indication" that there were fighters in the area at the time of the attack.

But "based on our initial investigation, eight of those killed were students enrolled in local schools", he said.

Elsewhere, Afghan police said fighters beheaded six people in Uruzgan province on Thursday for co-operating with government authorities.