An early morning bomb went off in the capital of Samangan Province this morning at 2 am, destroying 18 NATO fuel trucks and 4 supply vehicles.
Claiming responsibility for the blast, the Taliban made a statement this morning saying, “At 2 a.m. the mujahideen attacked the invader NATO trucks.”
The trucks were on their way to Afghanistan and had parked for the night in Uzbekistan before finishing their haul to NATO troops across the border. The bomb had been attached to the bottom of one of the trucks, the convoy vehicles had been parked close together. At the time of this article, the trucks are reported to be still burning.
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Although the government of Pakistan has re-opened the route for transporting supplies into Afghanistan, few trucks have crossed from that route. Instead, vehicles have been using the northern route since the initial closure of the route across the Pakistani border.
The bomb attack took place in the same province where lawmaker Ahmed Khan Samangani was killed while attending his daughter’s wedding on Saturday.
Elsewhere in the country Wednesday, a NATO helicopter crashed in western Afghanistan. There were injuries sustained by two troops in that incident in western part of of the country.
Two NATO soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in the eastern part of Afghanistan as well on Wednesday.
This year, there have been 238 deaths among the coalition ranks, this includes 172 Americans.