Roadside bomb kills 6 Canadian troops in Afghanistan

Six Canadian soldiers and their interpreter were killed Wednesday in southern Afghanistan when their armored vehicle hit a roadside bomb, officials said.

In a separate incident, the German government said one of its citizens had been kidnapped in Afghanistan.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack on Canadian troops since April, when six were killed in a similar incident.

The troops and their interpreter were returning from a joint operation with the Afghan army when their armored vehicle hit the device in the Panjwai district about 13 miles southwest of Kandahar, where Canada’s 2,600-troop contingent is based.

Sixty-six Canadian troops and a diplomat have died since Ottawa sent forces to Afghanistan in late 2002.

“As with every attack, we will look at what has happened and will decide at that time if there is something we need to do to increase the protection for our soldiers,” Brig. Gen. Tim Grant, head of Canadian forces in the country, said in a televised news conference in Kandahar.

Late last month, three Canadians died in Panjwai when their supply vehicle triggered a roadside bomb.

Canadian critics say their country’s effort, which is scheduled to continue until February 2009, is focused too much on fighting and not enough on rebuilding Afghanistan.

In Berlin, German officials said the German citizen had been missing since last Thursday.

The ZDF television network reported that the man, who worked on road construction projects, had been in Afghanistan for several years and was kidnapped with his interpreter in the southwest province of Farah. It quoted sources in the German Foreign Ministry as saying that negotiations with the kidnappers would take place today.

About 3,200 German soldiers are based in northern Afghanistan near the city of Kunduz.

In May, a poll published in Germany’s leading weekly, Der Spiegel, indicated that 56% of Germans favored withdrawing the country’s soldiers from Afghanistan. The interviews were done two days after three German soldiers died in a suicide attack in Kunduz.

In February, German citizens Hannelore Krause and her Iraqi-born son, Sinan, were taken hostage in Iraq. Kidnappers threatened to kill them if German troops were not withdrawn from Afghanistan. The two still are being held.