2 U.S TROOPS AMONG 50 KILLED IN AFGAN VIOLENCE

KABUL – Nearly 50 Afghan civilians, security forces and militants were killed in a spate of attacks around the war-torn country, including an overnight military raid targeting insurgents in the increasingly violent north, officials said Saturday. A roadside bomb killed two U.S. troops in the east.

• Two Taliban suicide bombers attacked an office of intelligence officers in the southern city of Kandahar, killing one agent. In Kabul province, gunfire broke out after an apparent spat between a U.S. service member and an Afghan police officer, seriously wounding both.
• A roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan killed two U.S. service members, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, as U.S. military spokeswoman. No other details were released.
• Taliban attacks have risen steadily the last three years as have deaths of Afghan civilians caught in the grinding war between the Taliban and U.S. and NATO forces.
• Taliban violence — which had been largely confined to the country's south and east in the years after the 2001 U.S. invasion — has spread to the country's northern provinces this year.
• Coalition and Afghan forces Saturday killed 11 militants during an overnight raid in northern Kunduz province, said Abdul Razaq Yaqoubi, the provincial police chief.
• The operation targeted Taliban fighters who helped foreign fighters and suicide bombers infiltrate the region, said Mathias.
• She said "a number" of militants were killed after the forces exchanged fire. Roadside bomb-making material, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades were found at the compound, she said.
• The raid did not appear to be connected with the kidnapping of a New York Times reporter and his Afghan colleague this month, officials said. British commandos freed the Western reporter last week but the Afghan and a commando died in the operation.

Source: AP