Reuters

    Wednesday 12 October 2005

    Kabul - Rockets exploded in Afghanistan's capital on Wednesday and six soldiers and five aid workers were killed in attacks blamed on Taliban insurgents as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited for talks.

    Taliban gunmen killed two doctors, two nurses and a driver working with an Afghan relief agency in the southern province of Kandahar as they returned from a visit to a village, a director of the agency said.

    Before dawn, a rocket that exploded outside the Canadian ambassador's residence in Kabul wounded a guard and a second rocket damaged a government building.

    Later in the day, six government soldiers were reported killed in a Taliban ambush in the central province of Uruzgan, the provincial governor said.

    Rice, who arrived on Wednesday for a short stop on a tour of central Asia, and her host President Hamid Karzai played down the violence, the latest in a series of militant attacks since elections last month.

    "The attacks after the elections are a clear indication of the frustration in terrorism that exists (because) of the success in Afghanistan of the political process," Karzai said speaking in English after meeting Rice in his fortified presidential palace.

    The September elections went ahead despite Taliban pledges to disrupt them and presidential polls in October 2004 that gave US-backed Karzai the country's top job.

    Future of US Troops

    Rice was in Kabul to reaffirm the United States' commitment to Afghanistan after leading the effort to oust the previous Islamic fundamentalist Taliban rulers. She also wanted to discuss the future of 18,000 troops deployed in the country.

    An official familiar with US military plans said after the meeting with Karzai that Washington wanted to reduce its forces in Afghanistan by about 3,000 to 4,000, starting in the next few months as NATO takes on more responsibility.

    Feeling the strain from its involvement in Iraq, Washington has been looking to European NATO allies to take over more counter-insurgency work in Afghanistan, but some of them have expressed opposition to the plan.

    The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres deplored the attack on the Afghan mobile medical team, saying it brought to at least 45 the number of humanitarian workers killed in Afghanistan since 2002.

    "We are outraged by this cowardly attack on our courageous humanitarian partners and friends who gave their lives helping others. We mourn their loss and extend our deepest condolences to their families," Guterres said in a statement.

    The Canadian ambassador's residence, where one of the rockets exploded on Wednesday, is tucked behind a heavily fortified street in the diplomatic enclave, about one km (half a mile) from the presidential palace, the US embassy and the headquarters of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission.

    The second rocket landed inside an intelligence department office not far from the palace, police said. They said no one was wounded but it had caused some damage.

    Residents said another rocket had hit elsewhere in the city, but this could not be immediately confirmed.

    Rice emphasized during her visit to Afghanistan - cut short by an impromptu trip to Pakistan to express sympathy for last weekend's devastating earthquake - that the United States remained committed to the country in the long term.