Afghan suicide bomber kills 17 at bath house as they wash for prayers

12 April 2012

A suicide bomber struck a bath house in a southern Afghan city today as men gathered to wash before Friday prayers, killing 17 people.

One of the victims, a border police inspector, was the apparent target, said spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province. The rest were civilians and 23 others were injured.

Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wesa condemned the attack in Spin Boldak, a city near the Pakistani border, saying "such actions by insurgents show that they are neither the friends of this land, nor the Afghan people". The south of the country is a Taliban stronghold and the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of a war that is approaching the start of its 10th year.

US and Nato forces in Afghanistan have failed to reduce Taliban numbers over the past year, according to American military and diplomatic sources.

A Nato official said that the current number of insurgent fighters is about 25,000, the same as a year ago, before the arrival of an extra 40,000 US and allied troops, and before Nato launched a massive campaign to restore government control in
Helmand province and around Kandahar.

It is believed that in 1993 the Taliban could only muster 500 armed men. "These are rough estimates because they're not just standing around to be counted," said the Nato official.

The Taliban are battling against 140,000 allied troops and more than 200,000 members of Afghanistan's security forces.

That gives the allies a numerical advantage of at least 12 to one. At the height of the Vietnam war, the US and its allies had an advantage of four/five to one over their Communist enemy.

Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: "As we look back on 2010, we see that we have made hard-fought progress. Our strategy is sound and we have in place the necessary resources to accomplish it."

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