Suicide bombers attack 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 and a military post in two key eastern towns, 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. The Taliban said 15 suicide bombers launched attacks against government buildings.

Separately, two would-be suicide bombers attempted to attack a military outpost near the airport in Jalalabad, a former Taliban stronghold and capital of Nangarhar province, bordering 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.

Visiting European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said EU member states supported the operation, but added security in Afghanistan was "evolving not in an ideal manner."

"I'm sure when the operation is over we will have a possibility to say that the situation in general, not only the south part, it will be better," Solana told reporters in Kabul.

Thousands of extra U.S. troops are being poured into Afghanistan -- U.S. troop numbers 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.

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 the assaults in Gardez and Jalalabad and that 15 suicide bombers had attacked 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.

At one point, Afghan forces were locked in a 20-minute gunbattle with insurgents who tried to break into government offices, said Paktia province spokesman Rohullah Samoon.

A Reuters reporter in Gardez said fighting had stopped by late afternoon. Shops and government offices were shut, and dozens of Afghan and U.S. soldiers patrolled the streets.

A curfew was placed on some streets near important buildings.

Two provincial officials in Gardez said at least five members of the Afghan security forces and three Taliban fighters had been killed. Samoon said four security officials were also wounded.

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

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

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 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. The alliance said in a statement 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.

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