Wire: 2 US, 4 Coalition Troops Die in Afghanistan

Off the Wire:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2009 -- Newswire services today reported that a powerful member of President Hamid Karzai's Cabinet threatened to quit after a suicide car bomb attack targeted him Sunday, killing five people, in the latest Taliban attempt to destabilize Afghanistan's struggling government. Two Americans were among six NATO troop deaths elsewhere.

A convoy carrying Energy Minister Ismail Khan, a powerbroker in Herat and former governor of that western province, was headed to the airport when a suicide car bomb exploded outside a high school, said Raouf Ahmadi, a police spokesman. Khan said five civilians died and 17 people were wounded, including four of Khan's bodyguards.

Two U.S. service members died Saturday in the country's south -- one from a roadside bomb explosion and the other from an insurgent attack, the NATO-led force said Sunday. A British soldier died Sunday from a bomb explosion while patrolling in southern Afghanistan, Britain's Defense Ministry said.

Elsewhere, The Associated Press said, three French soldiers died in a violent storm in northeastern Afghanistan late Saturday. One soldier was struck by lightning, while two were swept away by a rain-swollen river during an operation in Kapisa province, said military spokesman Christophe Prazuck.

This year has been the deadliest of the eight-year war for U.S. and NATO troops. The six latest deaths bring to 64 the number of NATO troops killed this month.

See link below for details.

(Report from newswire sources.)

Source: Top Afghan official threatens to quit after attack