Four US soldiers killed in Afghan mine blast
A land mine exploded under a US vehicle south of the Afghan capital of Kabul today, killing four soldiers in the deadliest incident for American troops there in almost 10 months, the military said.
It was unclear whether the mine was freshly laid or left over from Afghanistan’s long wars. But the blast highlighted the dangers still facing foreign and Afghan troops more than three years after the fall of the Taliban.
The victims were among a group of American and Afghan officials scouting a potential site for a shooting range in Logar Province, 25 miles south of Kabul, when one of their three vehicles hit the mine, US spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said.
The bodies of the four dead, none of whom was identified, were airlifted to the main US base at Bagram, Moore said. No one else was reported hurt
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast, but Moore said investigators suspected the mine was an old charge dislodged by recent rain and snow or that the vehicle had wandered into an unmapped minefield.
According to US Department of Defence statistics, 122 American soldiers have now died since American forces invaded to oust the former Taliban government for harbouring al Qaida militants after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US.
Many have been killed in accidents, including strikes on old mines left behind by Soviet troops who occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s or the Afghan factions including the Taliban who fought each other after they withdrew.
Moore said US troops had first toured an area the scene of today’s incident about a week earlier in search of a site for a training range for the American-trained Afghan army.
“We believe it was an old mine which could have shifted,” she said.
Governor Mohammed Aman Hamini said the incident occurred in a desert area criss-crossed by rough tracks.
