Four NATO service members died Monday in separate attacks across Afghanistan, including a suicide car bomb that targeted an international military convey as it crossed a bridge in the Taliban-dominated south, the coalition said. Nine Afghan civilians also died in four bombings in the south, according to officials. The deaths came as American and Afghan forces worked to consolidate control over the former insurgent stronghold of Marjah in the southern province of Helmand, where allied forces are waging the 8-year-old war's largest combined offensive. Mondays' suicide attacker waited in a station wagon taxi for the NATO convoy to cross the bridge between Kandahar city and the airport, then detonated his explosives, tossing a military vehicle into a ravine, said Inhamullah Khan, an Afghan army official at the site. A NATO spokesman, Maj. Marcin Walczak, confirmed one service member died in the suicide bombing. He did not provide the nationality or any other details. Four Afghan civilians died in the bridge attack, the Interior Ministry said. In western Afghanistan, two other NATO troops died in a mortar or rocket attack, a military statement said, while another service member was killed by small arms fire in the south.
