Georgian soldier killed in attack

Taliban suicide bomber hits NATO convoy, U.S. says.

A KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — Taliban suicide bomber disguised as a woman rammed his motorcycle into an international convoy, killing a NATO soldier and two Afghan civilians in an attack north of the Afghan capital, the U.S. military said Friday. It was the second deadly assault this week on a NATO convoy.

Stepped up Taliban attacks this week have focused mostly on the country’s south, but there was also a deadly bombing in the western city of Herat, where 32 people died in a militant assault on a Shiite mosque.

Thursday evening’s attack hit the NATO patrol near the town of Qarabagh, barely 18 miles north of Kabul, the Afghan capital, the U.S. military said.

The day before, a suicide attacker hit a convoy on the edge of the southern city of Kandahar, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding another four. Both attacks were claimed by the Taliban.

According to the U.S. military, three other Georgian soldiers were wounded in Thursday’s bombing, as well as two U.S. service members and an Afghan interpreter. The military said the wounded are in stable condition receiving treatment at the U.S. military hospital at Bagram Air Base, also north of Kabul.

The district governor in Qarabagh, Abdul Sami Sharifi, said the attacker concealed his explosives beneath the all-enveloping women’s garment known as a burqa. He rammed his motorcycle into the NATO patrol, setting off his explosives, Sharifi said.