Reply #1: Four German soldiers killed in Afghanistan's north [View All]

Four German troops were killed Thursday in fighting in northern Afghanistan's Baghlan province, a one-day toll that is likely to stoke further antiwar sentiment in an important European ally.

Though NATO spokesmen would not release details of the deaths, German defense officials said the four soldiers were killed in fighting that broke out after a German armored vehicle was attacked. Five German soldiers were wounded in the clash.

In the southern city of Kandahar, a suicide car bombing killed at least six people at a compound used by foreign companies. Three of the dead were foreigners and three were Afghan soldiers, said Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is the half brother of President Hamid Karzai and head of the Kandahar provincial council.

Once considered one of the less volatile sections of the country, Baghlan and the rest of the north have become new trouble spots for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces locked in an 8-year-old war with Taliban insurgents and their allies. The Taliban and other insurgent groups have widened their reach in the north, and have been bolstered by Al Qaeda-linked Chechen and Uzbek fighters.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/asia/la-fg-afghan-violence16-2010apr16,0,2873251.story