KABUL — About 50 civilians, security-force members and militants died in a wave of violence across Afghanistan, including a bomb that left 14 Afghan travelers dead in one of the country’s most dangerous regions.
Five American soldiers died in two attacks using roadside bombs.
The attacks Friday and Saturday reached a broad swath of the country, demonstrating the spread of the Taliban insurgency, which had been largely confined to the country’s south and east in the years after the 2001 U.S. invasion.
Half of those killed in the most recent attacks were civilians, who often find themselves caught in the grinding war between the Taliban and U.S. and NATO forces.
Bombs caused most of the casualties, including homemade blasts in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and a neighboring province that together killed 20 civilians.
A roadside bomb and gunfire attack in western Afghanistan killed three Americans, while another roadside bomb killed two Americans in the east, said Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo, a spokesman for the U.S. military command in Kabul. No other details were available.
Taliban militants also staged suicide attacks — and came under attack themselves.
Coalition and Afghan forces on Saturday killed 11 militants during an overnight raid in northern Kunduz province, said Abdul Razaq Yaqoubi, the provincial police chief.
The operation targeted Taliban fighters who helped foreign fighters and suicide bombers infiltrate the region, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman.
She said “a number” of militants were killed after the forces exchanged fire. Roadside bomb-making material, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades were found at the compound, she said.
The raid did not appear to be connected with the kidnapping of a New York Times reporter and his Afghan colleague in the province this month, officials said. British commandos freed the Western reporter last week, but the Afghan and a commando died in the operation.
