Militants killed nine NATO soldiers in an assault on a remote base in northeastern Afghanistan

Militants killed nine NATO soldiers in an assault on a remote base in northeastern Afghanistan, officials said, in one of the deadliest attacks on foreign forces fighting the Taliban insurgency. The attack on the military outpost on Sunday came as a suicide bomber targeted police in a busy bazaar in southern Uruzgan province, killing 24 Afghans including children, police officials said.In bloody carnage in several parts of Afghanistan, at least 40 insurgents were also killed in two days of fighting in southern Helmand province, the US-led coalition announced.A tenth foreign soldier was also killed in a bomb blast in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, the coalition said.Militants launched an early morning attack on the NATO base, in mountainous Kunar province near the Pakistan border, which soldiers from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force had only recently occupied, the force said.The rebels were beaten back after several hours and were believed to have suffered heavy casualties, it said in a statement."Nine ISAF soldiers died in fighting in northeastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border," the statement said. Fifteen ISAF soliders were also wounded along with four Afghan troops.ISAF, which draws nearly 53,000 soldiers from about 40 countries, did not give the nationalities of those killed, leaving such announcements for their home nation, but most of the soldiers in eastern Afghanistan are US nationals.It was one of the deadliest battles so far for the international forces that arrived in Afghanistan in late 2001 to oust the hardline Taliban movement now waging an insurgency that is backed by Al-Qaeda and other extremists.Sunday’s deaths take to 133 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year amid a spike in the insurgency-linked violence.
Afghan officials allege militants are being recruited and trained in Pakistan, coming across the border to launch suicide and other attacks and destabilise the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta called Sunday for the region to work together to deal with the violence - in a reference to Pakistan."The terrorist enemy behind these operations, which are sustained by a complex set of networks and infrastructure located behind the border of Afghanistan, cannot be defended by military operations inside Afghanistan alone," Spanta said.Afghan officials have accused Pakistan of being behind a suicide blast at the Indian embassy in Kabul this month that left 41 people dead, saying the attack had the hallmarks of its intelligence agency.Pakistan has denied involvement in the attack, the deadliest in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban.In Kunar meanwhile, an Afghan official said international war planes had bombed the area during fighting around the base, and there may also have been civilian casualties.
In the south of the country, a suicide attacker with bombs strapped to his body rammed a motorbike into a police car in the bazaar in Uruzgan, police said. All of the dead were civilians except for four policemen, said Uruzgan police chief Juma Gul Hemat."Most of the casualties are shopkeepers and people and children who were selling stuff on the roadside," said a shopkeeper who gave his name only as Fazlullah.The coalition announced it had killed at least 40 militants in an operation that started Saturday and was still under way in Helmand.Afghan and coalition forces under attack had returned fire and called in air strikes, it said in a statement."At least 40 militants have been killed in the last two days, while over 30 enemy boats and several ... bridges were also destroyed on the Helmand River."