2 soldiers killed in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan – Bomb attacks on U.S.-led forces killed two coalition soldiers and wounded four in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday. An Afghan interpreter also was injured.

Afghanistan has suffered a spate of suicide bombings in the past 10 months, but most have been in southern provinces, where remnants of the former Taliban regime are strongest. More than 400 people, mostly militants, died in fighting last month as more NATO forces prepared to deploy to the south.

On Tuesday, a roadside bomb struck a military vehicle conducting security operations in Nangarhar province, killing two coalition soldiers, said Lt. Khrysten Darm, a U.S. military spokeswoman. She said one soldier and one Afghan interpreter were wounded, but she could not disclose the nationalities of the soldiers.

The provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Basir Salangi, said the attack was against U.S. military vehicles.

Earlier in the day, a suicide car bomb hit a military convoy, wounding three U.S. soldiers in eastern Afghanistan’s Khost province, the military said.

Two soldiers were taken to a medical facility. The third had only minor injuries.

The provincial deputy police chief, Gen. Mohammed Zaman, said the attacker maneuvered a car packed with explosives – including dozens of mortar rounds – into the coalition convoy before triggering the blast. The explosion was so powerful that it melted asphalt on the road, he said.

A third incident in the eastern part of the country – an explosion in the courtyard of a religious school and mosque – killed three people and wounded at least seven Tuesday in what appeared to have been a premature bomb detonation, officials said.

The U.S. military also announced that an American soldier died of undetermined causes Monday, but hostile action was not suspected.

The Defense Department reported Tuesday that Army Staff Sgt. Christian Longsworth, 26, of Newark, N.J., died May 19 in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province from wounds suffered when his convoy came under attack. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, N.C.