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Bomber kills five Afghans at base

KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber wearing an Afghan security uniform detonated explosives at the entrance to a combined U.S.-Afghan base on Saturday, killing four Afghan soldiers and a civilian, officials said.

The bomber walked up to a security gate for Afghan soldiers outside Forward Operating Base Bermel in the eastern province of Paktika, near the border with Pakistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said.

It said four Afghan soldiers and a civilian were killed and six Afghans were wounded. No Americans were hurt.

It was not clear if the bomber had been trying to gain entry to the base.

Taliban insurgents have set off more than 100 suicide blasts this year, a record pace, and violence in 2007 has been the deadliest since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

More than 5,200 people have died this year due to the insurgency, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.

Elsewhere, Taliban militants killed three Afghan police officers who had been trying to prevent them from carrying out a kidnapping, said Helmand provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal. The militants successfully kidnapped an Afghan man during the gunbattle, he said.

Separately, U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan soldiers killed "several" Taliban fighters near the Musa Qala region in Helmand province, the coalition said.

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks around Musa Qala, a Taliban-controlled town in the heart of Afghanistan's poppy growing region.

[Last modified October 28, 2007, 01:41:09]