Suicide Bomber Kills 7 in Afghanistan

Canadian soldiers stands guard at the scene where a suicide bomber killed two Americans and four Afghans in Kandahar, south Afghanistan, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006. A suicide bomber on foot blew himself up outside a compound for security contractors in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two Americans and four Afghans, an official and witnesses said. The bomber hit the men as they came out of the Kandahar compound of the USPI security company, said Rohullah Khan, an official with the company. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan) (Allauddin Khan - AP)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber blew himself up next to security contractors in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two Americans and five Afghans. It was the sixth suicide attack in the Kandahar region in nine days.

The bomber walked up and detonated his explosives as the men left the offices of the Houston-based U.S. Protection and Investigations security company, said Rohullah Khan, a company official. The offices are near a Canadian military base in Kandahar.

Provincial police chief Asmatullah Alizai said two foreigners, four Afghan policemen and a translator were killed. Security company employee Mohammad Aszal said the two foreign victims were Americans. Three people also were wounded, Khan said.

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, who claims to be a spokesman for the Taliban, contacted The Associated Press and said the group was responsible for the attack. Ahmadi's exact ties to the militants are not known.

Near-daily attacks plague Afghanistan's lawless southern provinces, the former stronghold of the ousted Taliban regime. The Kandahar region has seen six suicide bombings since Nov. 27, when two Canadian soldiers were killed in an attack.

Taliban militants have launched a record number of suicide and roadside bombs this year. A growing insurgency, especially in the country's south and east, has left close to 4,000 dead.

Despite the recent spike in suicide bombings, NATO said Wednesday that the overall number of coordinated insurgent attacks in Afghanistan has decreased.

There were 449 major attacks in November, down nearly 50 percent from 869 in September, said Brig. Richard Nugee, chief spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

As the number of attacks on NATO and Afghan troops decreased, militants have resorted to suicide bombings, Nugee told reporters in Kabul, the capital.

"By using suicide bombs, they are being forced into a desperate tactic which in the long run will work against them because the people of Afghanistan will go against them," he said.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan's intelligence agency announced the arrest last week in the eastern city of Jalalabad of a man who was wearing an explosives-packed vest and belt and who was suspected of being on a suicide bombing mission.

The man allegedly said that he had crossed the border from Pakistan and that his family would have been paid about $20,000 for his attack. He said he was hired by a cleric from a religious school in Pakistan, the agency said.

Afghan and some Western officials have long accused Pakistan of not doing enough to prevent insurgents from being trained on its soil and then crossing the border to carry out attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan says it does all that it can.

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AP writer Fisnik Abrashi contributed to this report from Kabul.