A suicide bomber killed 13 people and wounded at least 20 in an attack on a minibus carrying police cadets in the main city in Afghanistan's east on Wednesday, a government spokesman said.
Ahmadzia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province in Afghanistan's turbulent east, said the bomber had rammed an explosives-packed car into the bus carrying cadets in Jalalabad city. He said the dead and wounded included police and civilians.
The Canadian CH-47 Chinook transport chopper accident occurred during night operations by the Quebec-based Royal 22nd Regiment in the Horn of Panjwaii. Insurgents were not blamed in the incident.
None of the injuries were considered serious or life threatening at this time, said Maj. David Devenney, the Task Force Kandahar spokesman. Among several dozen passengers was a Canadian journalist who was uninjured.
Three of the wounded were flown by another helicopter to the U.S. Navy-run Role 3 Hospital at Kandahar Airfield. Canadian and other coalition forces secured the crash site.
"I am extremely happy everybody is in good shape," said Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, the Canadian commander. "The casualties were very minor. They'll be looked at over the next few days."
"It was a standard operation," Milner explained. "We move Chinooks through that battle space all the time and are very deliberate about where we land. We landed on a piece of turf in a riverbed that is fairly straight. But that little piece wasn't and the wheels went cockeyed. As a result, the helicopter rolled, the blades broke, and it finished the roll ending up on its side."
Devenney said that an assessment was being conducted to decide whether the aircraft was salvageable. Initial reports suggested that it had been heavily damaged.
Milner said that the damaged helicopter would have no impact on military operations.
"There will be no loss of operational tempo as we close in on the fighting season which is about to begin because the poppy harvest is almost over," he said.
Monday's accident was the third involving a Canadian helicopter in Afghanistan. Another Chinook was hit by insurgent gunfire and burned after being forced to make a hard landing on Aug. 5, 2010. Eight soldiers were wounded in the crash.
Thirteen months earlier a smaller Canadian CH-146 Griffon helicopter crashed on takeoff in neighbouring Zabul province. Three on board died and three others were injured.
Those who died were: Master Cpl. Pat Audet, 38, of Montreal, and Cpl. Martin Joannette, 25, of St-Calixte, Que., and a British officer.
Another Canadian, military photographer Master Cpl. Darrell Jason Priede, was killed in 2007 when the U.S. Chinook helicopter that he was flying in was apparently shot down in Helmand province. Six other coalition soldiers died in that crash.
Helicopters are one of the main ways to get around southern Afghanistan's rugged terrain. When available they are often the preferred means of transport because the Taliban often mine the roads with homemade explosives.
Canada acquired a small fleet of Chinooks from the U.S. army after the Manley Panel on Afghanistan recommended to Parliament that helicopters were urgently needed to help troops off Kandahar's dangerous roads.
Royal Marine from 42 Commando has been killed in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said.
The marine was killed by a bomb while involved in an operation to search a compound in the Loy Mandeh Wadi area of the Nad Ali district of Helmand province on Sunday.
The marine's next of kin have been informed.
It means the number of British military deaths in operations in Afghanistan since 2001 now stands at 365.
Lieutenant Colonel Tim Purbrick, a spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said the marine, who was from Plymouth-based 42 Commando, had been involved in an operation which was "investigating suspected insurgent activity" in a number of compounds in the Loy Mandeh Wadi area of the Nad Ali district in Helmand Province when he was fatally injured.
He added: "Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends."
Last week, the head of the armed forces said Britain had failed to accurately gauge Taliban resistance to UK troops in Helmand province.
General Sir David Richards told the Commons defence committee UK troops "turned up a hornet's nest" when they moved into south Afghanistan in 2006.
"There was, in some respects, a failure of intelligence despite the efforts to get it right," he said.
About 3,300 British troops took over control of Helmand five years ago.
The government has said it wants all British combat troops to leave Afghanistan by 2015.
In February, Defence Secretary Liam Fox suggested some of the UK 10,000 personnel based there could come home this year if "conditions on the ground" were suitable.
Taliban insurgents are attacking several locations in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and have wounded at least 11 people.
Provincial spokesman Zalmay Ayoubi said by phone from inside the governor's building that the compound was under attack. There also were reports of gunfire and explosions in other parts of the city.
The violence began shortly after midday Saturday with reports of militants using small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attacks, a week after the group announced the start of its annual spring offensive.
The attacks in Kandahar city also come a day after the Taliban issued a statement saying that Osama bin Laden's killing in Pakistan by U.S. forces would give a boost to the insurgency. However, a militant spokesman said Saturday's assault was not a revenge attack.
Kandahar province is a major stronghold of the insurgency in Afghanistan and the birthplace of the Taliban.
Osama bin Laden was killed by a bullet fired by a United States Navy SEAL during a 40-minute helicopter assault on a fortified compound believed to have been purpose-built to hide the al-Qaeda leader.
Despite being the world's most wanted man, pursued by the most advanced military in history, Osama bin Laden evaded capture for almost a decade thanks to a secretive and ruthless protection system.
In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, bin Laden is thought to have moved between Kandahar and Kabul, in Afghanistan, arranging the exit and financial backing of allies.
Three months after the attacks, he survived the aerial bombardment by the US air force of the cave complex in the mountains of Tora Bora, in which he was widely assumed to be hiding.
For almost ten years, it had been generally thought that he and a cabal of close aides slipped across the nearest point of the Pakistani border, probably assisted by rogue Pakistani law enforcement officers.
But a report based on intelligence gained from a detainee in Guantanamo Bay, released just last week by Wikileaks, suggested that bin Laden in fact headed in another direction, towards Jalalabad.
The report suggested that he stayed there in a safe house – while a $25 million (£15 million) bounty hung over his head – before heading towards the remote province of Kunar, in north-east Afghanistan.
It was said that bin Laden escaped with help from a Pakistani militant and cleric called Maulawi Nur Muhammad, who provided up to 50 fighters to escort him and Ayman al-Zawahiri, his deputy.
The al-Qaeda chief is thought to have then stayed in Kunar, a violent and generally ungovernable area, before again crossing the border into Pakistan in late 2002.
Since then, the life of bin Laden – and the activities of US forces assigned to capture him – have remained mysterious, with critics baffled that George Bush, and later Barack Obama, failed to find him.
Known to his close followers as "the sheik", and surrounded by 40 bodyguards, bin Laden was said to have moved with utmost care around the tribal-run border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It was reported that the personnel protecting bin Laden had an agreed code word that, when uttered, would signify that enemy forces were approaching and that they must martyr themselves.
Reports suggested that on at least one occasion, US troops came very close to bin Laden's compound, prompting intense disquiet among the terrorist leader's circle. But they never came close enough.
For all the billions of dollars ploughed into intelligence, high-tech assaults and drone attacks by the US, bin Laden had on his side an intensely loyal following and a biddable local population that was no friend to Washington.
Bin Laden, a wealthy heir flush with jihadists' cash, was reported to have paid millions of US dollars to local tribesmen, who had already promised to help the US military, to instead assist him and al-Zawahiri in their exile.
At the same time, the White House depended on Pakistan – led for much of the period by the erratic Pervez Musharraf – for assistance, despite widespread knowledge that significant portions of its intelligence service was sympathetic to al-Qaeda.
In recent years bin Laden was rumoured to have suffered from serious kidney problems, leading to frequent rumours of his demise. Yet he persistently re-appeared on video to pass comment on US foreign policy and other world affairs.
Last night it appeared that, in the face of longstanding and intense US attacks on the tribal regions, bin Laden had been forced to flee to the town of Abbottabad, north of Islamabad. There, the intense secrecy surrounding his movements would have been far more easily breached.
His apparent hideout was, for instance, close to a cinema, a police station and a hospital for women and children. In the wilds of the tribal regions his operation might have gone largely unnoticed. But it appeared that working from here, apparently in a mansion with no external communications, where residents burned their rubbish, was too much: too many suspicions were aroused.
The Taliban on Saturday declared the start of a spring offensive in Afghanistan, warning that insurgents plan to attack foreign troops, Afghan security forces and government officials in coming days.
In a statement, the Taliban warned civilians to avoid public gatherings, military bases and convoys, as well as government buildings.
"All Afghan people should bear in mind to keep away from gatherings, convoys and centers of the enemy so that they will not become harmed during attacks of mujahedin against the enemy," the statement said.
The statement said that in addition to troops, the targets of their operation would be high-ranking officials within President Hamid Karzai's government, members of the Cabinet and lawmakers, as well as businessmen working with NATO forces.
United Nations officials, who lost eight staff members in an attack last month in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, appealed to the Taliban not to target noncombatants.
"Parties to the conflict must not deliberately attack, target or kill civilians," said Staffan de Mistura, who heads the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. "I call on the Taliban to carry out their previously stated decision to avoid civilian casualties. Afghan civilians have paid the price of war for too long. It is more urgent than ever that all parties act to prevent this suffering."
North Atlantic Treaty Organization commanders have trumpeted successes in Afghanistan since 30,000 additional U.S. troops arrived last year, although they also predicted a spike in violence with the arrival of the spring and summer fighting season. On Friday, senior military officials and Western diplomats warned of a surge in militant attacks during the coming week.
Violence across Afghanistan hit record levels in 2010, with civilian and military casualties the worst since U.S.-backed Afghan forces dislodged the Taliban regime in 2001.
The Pentagon said in a biannual report Friday that the increase in violence was attributable in part to increased offensives against insurgent havens and mild winter weather that kept insurgents active.
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