Suicide bombers and gunmen attack east Afghan towns

KABUL (Reuters) - At least nine people were killed when Taliban guerrillas, including waves of suicide bombers, launched a series of daring attacks in east Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said, in a clear upsurge of violence.

Suicide bombers attacked, or attempted to attack, government and security offices in the key eastern towns of Gardez and Jalalabad. Gunbattles raged in Gardez amid confused reports of the fighting.

In Gardez, capital of Paktia province, the U.S. military said at least three suicide attacks were reported, while the Taliban said 15 suicide bombers launched attacks against government buildings.

Separately, two would-be suicide bombers attempted to attack a target near the airport in Jalalabad, a former Taliban stronghold and capital of neighbouring Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan.

The Taliban, leading a growing insurgency against the Western-backed government and seeking to drive foreign forces out of Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Violence has surged across Afghanistan since thousands of U.S. Marines and British troops launched major new offensives in southern Helmand province, the heartland of the Taliban and the major producer of the opium poppy that funds the insurgency.

The offensives are the first operation under U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and its Islamist allies and stabilise Afghanistan, which Obama has identified as Washington's top military priority.

Thousands of extra foreign troops are being poured into Afghanistan -- U.S. troop numbers alone will reach 68,000 by year's end -- in part to help secure the August 20 presidential poll, the second in Afghanistan's short history as a democracy.

But the Taliban have hit back across Afghanistan since the Helmand operations were launched on July 2, with death tolls for U.S. and other foreign troops -- and civilians as well -- reaching record levels in the eight-year--old war.

Such alarming casualties have spurred deep soul-searching in Washington and London about strategies for the war and how long foreign troops might have to stay, as well showing worrying signs of how unprepared Afghan forces are to take over.

"COMMANDO-STYLE"

In Paktia, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location that the insurgents claimed responsibility for both attacks and said that 15 suicide bombers had taken part in the assault on Gardez.

Captain Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman, said suicide attacks had been reported against the governor's compound in Gardez, the police headquarters and the National Directorate of Security offices.

Two provincial officials in Gardez said at least five members of the Afghan security forces and three Taliban fighters had been killed as gunbattles raged in the town.

At least two of the suicide bombers were dressed in traditional head-to-toe burqas worn by many Afghan women, said an Afghan source working for a foreign aid agency.

Afghanistan's Defence Ministry described the Gardez attacks as "commando-style."

It said the situation in Gardez was under control but neither it nor the Interior Ministry were able to say whether the attacks were over or if all the suicide bombers had been accounted for.

The Interior Ministry in Kabul said security forces identified six suicide bombers. It said four were killed but another two were able to detonate explosives they were carrying near police and intelligence offices.

The ministry said two police were killed and three wounded.

It had no comment on the Taliban's claim of 15 bombers.

The complex attack in Gardez resembled other recent assaults by the Taliban in eastern Nuristan, Paktika province and even the capital, Kabul, and elsewhere.

In Jalalabad, NATO-led forces said insurgents tried to attack a forward operating base. It said NATO and Afghan troops killed one bomber before he could detonate explosives and captured the second.

July has already become the deadliest month of the war for both U.S. troops and foreign forces as a whole in Afghanistan.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said another of its troops had been killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Monday, but did not give the soldier's identity.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb -- by far the most common and deadliest weapon deployed by insurgents in Afghanistan -- in the east on Monday, but gave no other details.

Their deaths took to at least 27 the number killed so far in July, more than the previous highest monthly total of 26 in September 2008.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in KABUL, Kamal Sadat and Elyas Wahdat in KHOST; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)