Spate of Taliban attacks kills 12 NATO soldiers

KABUL — A string of bomb, rocket and gun attacks across southern Afghanistan have killed 12 NATO troops in just two days, officials said Wednesday, throwing the spotlight on the spiralling cost of the war.The brazen assaults followed the killing of three British troops by a rogue Afghan soldier, an incident that has underscored concerns over efforts to build up the local army, a cornerstone of the US-led war strategy.Four soldiers were killed in a Taliban-style bombing and a fifth by small-arms fire in the volatile south on Wednesday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.Late Tuesday, Taliban insurgents had set off a car bomb, then fired rockets and small arms into a police base in the southern province of Kandahar, killing three US soldiers and five Afghan civilians.Afghan police backed by international forces fought back "and prevented insurgents from penetrating the compound perimeter," ISAF said.Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the Kandahar government, told AFP the car bomb was set off by a suicide bomber, adding that several other insurgents attacked the base with rockets and machine-gun fire for more than 20 minutes.The interior ministry said another nine civilians were killed in the neighbouring province of Helmand on Tuesday when the minivan they were travelling in hit a roadside bomb -- the Taliban's weapon of choice.A similar bomb killed two private security guards in Paktia province on the eastern border with Pakistan, it added.The violence flared on the heels of the killing Tuesday by a renegade soldier of three members of a British Gurkha battalion on a base in Helmand, one of the most violent parts of the country.At least 365 NATO soldiers have died in the conflict so far this year, compared with 521 for all of 2009.President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan army chief have vowed a full investigation into the shooting.Britain, the main US ally in the war against the Taliban, said it would not alter its strategy in working with local forces, which is key in enabling them to tak

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