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Suicide bomber wounds four Britons in attack in southern Afghanistan

Photo: A Canadian soldier inspects a vehicle after it was attacked by a suicide bomber in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, Sunday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suspected Taliban suicide attacker rammed a car laden with explosives into an armoured vehicle carrying British government officials Sunday in southern Afghanistan, wounding four of them, a U.S.-led coalition commander said. The assault, coming three weeks after landmark legislative elections, underscored the terrorist threat still facing Afghanistan as it slowly moves toward democracy. It also added to fears that insurgents here are copying tactics used in Iraq. The four Britons were travelling in an armoured Land Cruiser in Kandahar city, a former stronghold of the Taliban, when they were attacked by a suicide bomber in a Toyota Corolla, said Col. Steve Bowes, a Canadian commander with the coalition. The Britons' vehicle burned. Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid said the four were customs officials from London touring the region ahead of the launch of a British government-sponsored project. Two of the officials were in serious condition, while the other two were lightly wounded, Khalid said. All were taken to the hospital. The assailant's's dismembered body was recovered and he appeared to be Afghan, Khalid said. "We have an intelligence report that the attacker was a member of the Taliban," the governor added. It was the third suicide attack in Afghanistan in two weeks. The deadliest was late last month when nine people died in a bombing outside an army training centre in the capital, Kabul. Suicide assaults are far less frequent in Afghanistan than those staged by insurgents opposed to U.S.-led forces in Iraq, although senior Afghan officials have spoken in recent months of al-Qaida operatives entering the country to pursue such attacks. The bombings come amid a major upsurge in violence across much of the country since March that has left more than 1,300 people dead. On Saturday, the U.S. military announced its 200th fatality in and around Afghanistan since the Taliban was ousted four years ago. This year has been the deadliest yet for the 19,000 American soldiers based here, with 84 killed. Still, the burden of the fighting now shouldered by U.S. forces may soon decrease. An 11,000-soldier NATO-led peacekeeping force, already responsible for security in Afghanistan's north and west, is gearing up to expand next year into the volatile south and east. The move will allow the separate coalition force to reduce its size and focus on hunting for Osama bin Laden and his allies, thought to be hiding in rugged mountains in the region. By Nor Khan