KABUL (CP) - Fighting across Afghanistan killed 10 suspected rebels, six police and five medical workers, and President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday he believes the insurgents are receiving support from the country's booming drug trade.
The suspected Taliban guerrillas were killed Monday by U.S. warplanes that bombed their hideout in Uruzgan province, which has long been a hotbed of militant activity, local Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan said.
U.S. military spokeswoman Sgt. Marina Evans confirmed the attack and said "several of the enemy had been killed."
On Tuesday, six police officers were killed by suspected Taliban rebels who ambushed their convoy in mountains in Uruzgan province, the second major attack on the fledgling force in two days, local Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan said.
One officer was still missing after the attack and feared dead, while four police vehicles were destroyed. Reinforcements have been rushed to the area "to hunt down the Taliban," Khan said.
The attack on the medical workers occurred Wednesday near Kandahar city, a former Taliban stronghold, said doctor Abdul Qadir, director of UN-sponsored Afghan Help Development Services, a local aid group that employed the five.
Gunmen opened fire on their vehicle as they drove through the desert. Two of the five dead were doctors. Three other medical workers in the vehicle were wounded, Qadir said. The eight were returning to Kandahar after treating refugees in a nearby camp.
A pre-dawn blast near the Canadian ambassador's residence on Wednesday injured two local men believed to be guards employed at the residence.
Defence Minister Bill Graham is currently in Afghanistan but "was not involved," Defence Department spokeswoman Kiersten Leus said from Ottawa. She would not say where Graham was when the rocket exploded.
The new Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan, David Sproule, has been in the country for about a week, a Canadian embassy official in Kabul told The Canadian Press. It was not known where Sproule was when the rocket exploded.
Some Canadians were in the building when the rocket, one of two to hit the city on Wednesday, exploded, said Dan McTeague, the parliamentary secretary for Canadians abroad.
"We had guards from a local company and two of them were injured," said the Canadian embassy official. "The rocket in fact struck very close to our embassy residence."
The area of the city is heavily protected because it is home to buildings housing offices and residences of foreign diplomats. It was not clear whether the Canadian building was damaged.
