Over There

Four NATO Soldiers Killed in Afghan Bombing

Taliban steps up Kandahar City attacks.

A bomb attack killed four NATO soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, bringing the death toll for this year to 224. The Taliban's spring offensive has been especially intense this year, with more foreign troops killed in April and May of this year than in the same months in any other year of the war. Meanwhile, in southern Afghanistan, the coalition surge in the rural area outside Kandahar has apparently driven Taliban insurgents into the city. They've staged several high-profile attacks, including a two-day assault on government installations in early May, a massive jailbreak, and almost daily assassinations of people they suspect of working with coalition forces. "The Taliban are more active in the city than at any time since 2001," says a former police general. "They've brought the war inside Kandahar."