Suicide bombers attack Afghan governor; 22 die

A team of six suicide bombers — some wearing explosive vests — stormed a provincial governor's compound in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing 22 people in the latest high-profile attack to target prominent Afghan government officials, authorities said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the Parwan provincial capital of Charikar, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Kabul. The province is home to Bagram Air Field, a sprawling base for U.S. and NATO troops.

The coordinated assault is the most recent in a string of spectacular Taliban attacks within an hour's drive of Kabul — a worrying sign of the insurgency's strength near the heart of the country and its determination to target Afghanistan's nascent leadership.

Early this month, the Taliban shot down a helicopter in a province on the western border of the capital, killing 38 American and Afghan troops. In late June, gunmen killed at least 21 people in an attack on the Inter-Continental hotel in Kabul itself.

The violence is a sign of NATO's broader struggles in the east, where persistent insurgent attacks forced the alliance to pull forces back from outlying patrol bases and outposts. The coalition, which plans to send 10,000 troops home by the end of the year, is considering whether to move forces from Taliban heartlands in the south to reinforce troops fighting insurgents in the east.

Southern provinces like Kandahar and Helmand are the Taliban's traditional stronghold, while the east is a base of operations for many Pakistani based Taliban and international terrorist affiliates like al-Qaida and the Haqqani network.

Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan is also a common thoroughfare for insurgents attempting to strike Kabul, although Parwan is considered to be relatively secure.

Sunday's assault began with a car bomb outside the front gate, police said. The blast blew open a hole in the wall, allowing five insurgents wearing suicide vests and carrying automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades to rush into the compound.

Afghan police said they killed three of the attackers as they approached the governor's house.

The attack took place during a high-level provincial security meeting attended by Parwan Gov. Abdul Basir Salangi, his police chief, intelligence director, a local army commander and at least two NATO advisers.

Salangi told The Associated Press that he and his aides fired from their meeting room with AK-47s. He claimed to have killed at least one of the insurgents himself.

"I had an AK-47. I shot him and from the window of my waiting room," said Salangi, who was formerly the police chief of Kabul and a rebel fighter during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He said it was the second time in the past month he was targeted by an assassination attempt.

Provincial Police Chief Gen. Sher Ahmad Maladani also took part in the gun battle, which he said lasted for approximately one hour.

"The last attacker was killed by police when he was only about 15 meters away from me," said Maladani. The bomber was killed before he could detonate his explosives.

The attack left much of the compound in ruins. Part of the governor's offices were burned. Broken glass and body parts littered the courtyard. Several cars were wrecked by explosions and bullets.

Sixteen of the dead were civilian Afghan government employees and six were policemen, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.

Meanwhile, the French Defense Ministry said one of its soldiers was killed Sunday by isolated fire during an operation in the northeast province of Kapisa.

The death brings to 382 the number of coalition service members killed in Afghanistan 2011 and 59 in August.

Seventy-four French troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. About 4,000 French troops are taking part in NATO-led operations against the Taliban, and France says 1,000 troops will be brought home next year, with a full withdrawal of combat forces in 2014.

19 dead in attack on Afghan governor's compound

A team of six suicide bombers launched a coordinated assault on a provincial governor's compound in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing 19 people in the latest high-profile attack to target prominent Afghan government officials, authorities said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the Parwan provincial capital of Charikar, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Kabul. Bagram Air Base, NATO's headquarters for Regional Command East, is located about 7 miles away.

Afghan police said the assault began with a car bomb outside the front gate. The blast blew open a hole in the wall, allowing five insurgents wearing suicide vests and carrying automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades to rush into the compound.

Afghan police said they killed three of the attackers as they approached the governor's house.

The attack appeared to target a meeting of top provincial security officials that was taking place in the compound. Afghan National Police Gen. Abdul Jalil Rahimi said he was at the meeting, along with Parwan Gov. Abdul Basir Salangi, top provincial Afghan army and police officials, and at least two NATO police advisers.

"Two of the bombers were able to get into the building of the governor's house," Rahimi said.

Parwan Gov. Abdul Basir Salangi, a former rebel commander during the Russian occupation, also fired at the insurgents with his own machine gun. He said it was the second time in the past month he was targeted by an assassination attempt.

Provincial Police Chief Gen. Sher Ahmad Maladani also took part in the gun battle, which he said lasted for approximately one hour.

"The last attacker was killed by police when he was only about 15 meters away from me," said Maladani. The bomber was killed before he could detonate his explosives.

The attack left much of the compound in ruins. Part of the governor's offices were burned. Broken glass and body parts littered the courtyard. Several cars were wrecked by explosions and bullets.

Fourteen of the dead were civilian Afghan government employees and five were policemen, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.

And the international coalition announced that an insurgent attack killed a NATO service member in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday. The death brings to 382 the number killed in 2011 and 59 in August.

Father of drowned children files claims

The father of three children who drowned when their mother drove their minivan into the Hudson River says he'll sue a New York city and county for $80 million.

Jean Pierre says the City of Newburgh should have had a barrier at its boat ramp, where Pierre's estranged girlfriend LaShanda Armstrong killed herself and three of her four children April 12, when she drove down the ramp and into the river, the (Middletown, N.Y.) Times Herald-Record reported Tuesday.

Pierre said Orange County should have known for months the children were in danger and the county Department of Child Protective Services had the responsibility to monitor Armstrong, 25, and the children after 2-year-old Landen Pierre was found Feb. 7, half-dressed and wandering the streets.

Pierre had been watching the boy that night and was arrested after police discovered he had left Landen alone while he went to a gas station.

A Newburgh judge later granted a temporary order of protection against Pierre on April 12, the day neighbors said they heard Pierre pounding on Armstrong's door and shouting at her from the sidewalk, less than an hour before Armstrong loaded the kids into the minivan.

Pierre has filed a notice of claim against the city and county for $40 million each.

Armstrong's aunt Angela Gilliam said she was outraged by Pierre's high-dollar claims.

"Someone should file a claim against him," Gilliam said. "Forty million? Are you kidding me?"

U.S. troops' remains to land at Dover AFB

The United States will succeed in Afghanistan despite 30 U.S. troop deaths in a helicopter shot down by Islamist Taliban militia, President Barack Obama said.

"We will press on, and we will succeed," Obama said Monday as the troops' remains were being prepared to be flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware Tuesday.

"Our responsibility is to ensure that their legacy is an America that reflects their courage, commitment and sense of common purpose," Obama said.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday the deaths were a sobering affirmation of the U.S. "resolve and commitment to complete the mission still at hand."

No news coverage will be allowed of the remains' arrival and solemn transfer ceremony at Dover because the individual bodies are officially unidentified, Pentagon officials said, although they acknowledged they knew exactly who was killed in the Saturday crash -- the single deadliest day for U.S. troops in the decade-long Afghanistan war -- and already invited next-of-kin to Dover for the ceremonial rite.

Officials, who also did not say when the service members' remains would arrive at Dover, insisted they were not trying to limit images of the aftermath of one of the most catastrophic incidents of the Afghan war.

They were simply upholding a policy to preserve the dignity of the remains transfer, they said.

Pentagon Press Association President Nancy Youssef said the association was "seeking a way for the public to have a record of this poignant, important ceremony."

In February 2009 the Obama administration relaxed an 18-year Pentagon ban on media coverage of returning U.S. war dead, leaving the decision to the families of the dead.

Dover is the home for the largest U.S. military mortuary and has been used to receive service members killed in war and peacetime.

The 30 service members killed Saturday were among 38 people in a Boeing CH-47 Chinook twin-engine, tandem-rotor, heavy-lift helicopter that was shot down and crashed while on a mission to reinforce troops trying to capture a Taliban leader in the Saidabad district of Afghanistan's central-eastern Wardak province, a longtime Taliban stronghold, the U.S.-led command in Afghanistan said.

The Taliban said they shot down the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

Twenty-two of those killed were Navy SEALs from the Virginia Beach, Va., Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six -- the same unit that carried out the March 2 raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Three Air Force controllers and five crewmembers also died in the shootdown. Eight Afghans were also killed in the crash -- seven commandos and a civilian interpreter.

The Chinook is one of the few Vietnam War-era aircraft still in production and in front-line service. Its primary roles include troop movement, artillery fortification and battlefield resupply.

There were at least two other fatal shootdowns by rocket-propelled grenades of Chinooks carrying special operations troops, in 2002 and 2005, Politico reported.

Obama said June 22 10,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn by the end the year and 23,000 more troops by next summer. That would leave about 70,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan until 2014, the scheduled date for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country.