By Prensa Latina,
Kabul : At least three people died and another 10 were injured in a dynamite explosion Thursday against the Canadian troops fighting at the side of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the southern province of Kandahar, military sources said Thursday.
The attack occurred when a man carrying the explosive load adhered to his own body, got close to the soldiers and the explosive device blew up around the commercial center of Maywand, as told by Police Chief Mematullah Khan.
Preliminary reports said three Canadian soldiers were injured and transferred in a helicopter to a hospital in the military base of Kandahar.
However, the spokesman of the Afghan rebels, Mohamad Yusuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the attack on a phone call, and told press media it had been addressed against Canadian soldiers.
Ahmadi said 15 Canadian soldiers died in the attack, and two of their tanks had been destroyed.
Canada has 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, mostly in Kandahar, attached to the International Security Assistance Force under NATO orders.
Before this, a Canadian soldier died and another three were injured by the explosion of ground mine Tuesday in a highway, increasing the number of dead Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan to 107, since 2002.
ISAF military spokesmen confirmed the four soldiers were travelling in an armoured car when the explosion occurred in the district of Shah Wali Kowt.
UN statistics said that nearly 5,000 people (more than 2,000 civilians and 293 military among them) lost their lives in the first eight months of 2008.