By Nahal Toosi
Associated Press
Saturday, August 2, 2008

KABUL, Aug. 1 -- Roadside bombs killed five NATO soldiers and a civilian in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, while a coalition of aid groups warned that violence is spreading to once-stable regions and forcing the organizations to scale back humanitarian work.

The soldiers' deaths marked a bloody start to the month in what has already been a deadly year for Western forces in Afghanistan, where an insurgency is raging nearly seven years after the Taliban was ousted from power.

Four of the NATO soldiers and a civilian died in Konar province and the fifth soldier was killed in Khost, the alliance said in a statement. It did not release the nationalities of the soldiers, but most troops in those eastern areas are American.

The number of insurgent attacks in eastern Afghanistan has increased 40 percent this year compared with the same period in 2007. Afghan officials contend that most of the insurgents in the east use Pakistan's tribal areas across the border as a base.

A suicide bomber, meanwhile, blew himself up while being chased by police in the southwestern town of Zaranj in Nimruz province. The blast killed three civilians, including two young girls, and wounded five others, Afghan authorities said.

The Taliban-led insurgency has been particularly strong in the south and east, but the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief noted Friday that violence is now reaching other provinces, even those bordering the capital, Kabul, such as Logar and Wardak.

"Insecurity has spread to areas which were previously relatively stable in parts of north, northwest and central Afghanistan," the umbrella organization for 100 aid groups said in a statement.

Drawing on other recent reports, it said that "aid organizations and their staff have been subject to increasing attacks, threats and intimidation, by both insurgent and criminal groups."

A group advising aid agencies on security tallied 2,056 insurgent attacks in the six months through June, a 52 percent increase from the same period in 2007. The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office said 19 aid workers have been killed so far this year, compared with 15 during all of 2007.

The coordinating body said initial estimates suggest that more than 260 Afghan civilians were killed in July alone, a higher toll than in any other month in the last six years.