19 killed, dozens wounded in attack on U.S. convoy in Afghan market

Doing what the taliban do best...killing civilians. Eighteen civilians and one US soldier were killed when a bomb laden Toyota Corolla exploded next to a US convoy. International Herald Tribune

KABUL: A day after a suicide bombing in southern Afghanistan, insurgents struck Thursday in the east of the country, attacking an American military convoy in a crowded market and killing one soldier and 18 civilians, according to U.S. military and Afghan police officials.

One of the dead was a 12-year-old boy, who was killed when a suicide bomber in a Toyota Corolla approached an American military convoy and then swerved into a weekly market about 8 a.m., according to U.S. and Afghan accounts. Dr. Ajmal Pardes, the director of public health in the area, said 74 people had been wounded. The strike was in the Bati Kot district of Nangarhar Province, in eastern Afghanistan.

An Associated Press photographer said that an American military vehicle, two civilian vehicles and two rickshaws were destroyed.

Jeff Bender, a U.S. Navy commander and an American military spokesman in Kabul, said the civilian death count had risen to 18.