KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A suicide car bomb attack aimed at a convoy of NATO troops in southern Afghanistan killed at least 21 civilians, local officials said, and four Canadian soldiers also died on Thursday.
The four were killed, and 10 more wounded, in three separate roadside attacks in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, Canada's Department of National Defense said.
One Canadian died and four colleagues were wounded in the early hours.
The other three were killed when suspected Taliban fighters opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades near the provincial capital, Kandahar city, just after midday, the International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
Violence in the volatile south has intensified as NATO forces take over from U.S. troops in the alliance's biggest ground operation in its history. The car bomb attack is one of the bloodiest in Afghanistan for months.
Seven NATO soldiers have been killed since Monday when the alliance, led mainly by British and Canadian troops, took over operations in the south.
Six more have been killed in recent months as the grouping stepped up its deployment. Twenty three Canadian soldiers have died in the conflict.
"NATO will stand up to the insurgents and terrorists whose only goal is to wreck the future of Afghanistan," said NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
"Our military will continue their mission with the full backing of their allies and the international community."
The Taliban, intensifying operations in recent months, have vowed to topple President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government and drive out foreign forces.
NATO's expansion into the south is aimed at allowing the United States to cut the size of its forces in the country.
Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest phase since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 with most of the violence in the south and east, where more than 1,700 people including militants, civilians, aid workers, security forces and more than 70 foreign troops have been killed this year alone.
Another roadside bomb on Thursday, possibly aimed at a NATO convoy, wounded three civilians in the northern province of Baghlan, provincial officials there said.
Separately, 22 Taliban guerrillas were either killed or wounded in an operation by Afghan police on Wednesday in southern Helmand province, an interior ministry spokesman said.
Yousuf Stanizai said only two police were hurt in the operation. There was no immediate comment from the Taliban.
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