Three British paratroopers were killed in a Taliban attack on their patrol in southern Afghanistan, officials said on Friday, raising the number of international troops slain in the first week of August to 18.
Nato and the British government said the soldiers' armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb north of Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province on Thursday before insurgents opened fire. The soldiers fired back, but the three were killed.
Attacks killed at least 75 troops from the US and other international military forces in July, the highest death toll for a single month since 2001, according to military reports.
Thousands of additional US Marines have been deployed to southern Afghanistan in an attempt to reverse the militants' gains and enable for the August 20 elections to take place.
President Hamed Karzai, the leading candidate, held his first major campaign rally in the capital yesterday, drawing thousands of cheering supporters, many members of the Shiite Muslim Hazara minority.
Hazaras, believed to make up more than 10 per cent of the population, voted for Karzai in the country's last election. He has courted them by appointing Hazara officials to important ministries and other government posts.
Karzai was flanked at the heavily guarded rally by his two vice-presidential candidates Mohammad Qasim Fahim, an ethnic Tajik strongman who was a commander of the Northern Alliance that helped oust the Taliban in 2001, and Hazara leader Karim Khalili, currently the second vice president.
Karzai was long seen as the inevitable winner but Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, has emerged as Karzai's top challenger and appears to have closed at least part of the gap with a campaign focusing on government mismanagement, corruption and rising violence.
Nato and the British government said the soldiers' armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb north of Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province on Thursday before insurgents opened fire. The soldiers fired back, but the three were killed.
Attacks killed at least 75 troops from the US and other international military forces in July, the highest death toll for a single month since 2001, according to military reports.
Thousands of additional US Marines have been deployed to southern Afghanistan in an attempt to reverse the militants' gains and enable for the August 20 elections to take place.
President Hamed Karzai, the leading candidate, held his first major campaign rally in the capital yesterday, drawing thousands of cheering supporters, many members of the Shiite Muslim Hazara minority.
Hazaras, believed to make up more than 10 per cent of the population, voted for Karzai in the country's last election. He has courted them by appointing Hazara officials to important ministries and other government posts.
Karzai was flanked at the heavily guarded rally by his two vice-presidential candidates Mohammad Qasim Fahim, an ethnic Tajik strongman who was a commander of the Northern Alliance that helped oust the Taliban in 2001, and Hazara leader Karim Khalili, currently the second vice president.
Karzai was long seen as the inevitable winner but Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, has emerged as Karzai's top challenger and appears to have closed at least part of the gap with a campaign focusing on government mismanagement, corruption and rising violence.
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