Several Wounded In Afghan-Pakistani Border Blast
June 30, 2009
KABUL (Reuters) -- A suicide bomber attacked a border checkpoint at a crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a senior border policeman has said, wounding at least four people.
The bomber attacked the crossing for women in the east Afghan town of Torkham, senior policeman Mohammad Zaman Mamozai told Reuters by telephone from the Afghan-Pakistani border. The checkpoint was ablaze, he said.
Private Afghan television station Tolo reported that at least four people were wounded in the blast.
Ambulances were rushing to the scene from the nearby city of Jalalabad, a former Taliban and Al-Qaeda stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, a Reuters reporter in the city said.
The suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a room used by female security guards to check women crossing the border, Mamozai said.
Senior U.S. military commanders say violence in Afghanistan's Taliban-led insurgency has reached its highest level since the Islamist militants were ousted after a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
U.S. President Barack Obama has identified Afghanistan and Pakistan as his main foreign-policy priority and Washington is pouring thousands of extra U.S. troops into Afghanistan in a bid to stabilize the war-racked nation.
The reinforcements are meant to help secure the August 20 presidential election in Afghanistan and to combat the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies.