As the country awaited news about last week’s presidential election, Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar was rocked by a series of bombings that killed at least 36 people, some of them women and children. In addition, four American soldiers were killed elsewhere in southern Afghanistan, pushing the death toll for foreign troops higher in 2009 than any year since the invasion began in 2001. –KA
Times Online:
At least 36 people died in a multiple car bombing and four US soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb today in a day of violence in southern Afghanistan that overshadowed the release of the first partial results of a presidential election.
[…] The five simultaneous car bombs in the southern city of Kandahar destroyed the offices of a Japanese construction company, killing women and children and wounding at least 64 people in the bloodiest such attack since July last year.
The bloodshed is likely to prompt further questions about the international mission in Afghanistan following an election last week that was marred by Taleban attacks, low turnout, and allegations of massive fraud.