Attacks in Afghanistan kill 5 U.S. troops

KABUL, Afghanistan — Five U.S. troops died in attacks in southern Afghanistan, military officials said Friday.

Also Friday, election officials agreed to recount results from a sample of 10 percent of polling stations with suspect results in a push to release long-delayed presidential election results before winter makes any runoff impossible.

The Obama administration is debating whether to add still more troops to the 21,000-strong influx that began pouring into Afghanistan over the summer. Most of those have gone to the south, where they've been assailed by roadside bombs and ambushes as they battle to take back Taliban-controlled areas.

The commander of U.S. and NATO forces, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, told 60 Minutes that the strength of themilitant group took him by surprise when he arrived this summer.

"I think that in some areas that the breadth of the violence, the geographic spread of violence, is a little morethan I would have gathered," he said in the interview to be broadcast Sunday.

This has been the deadliest year for American troops since the 2001 invasion to oust the Islamic extremistTaliban. The five deaths announced Friday raise to 214 the number of troops killed so far this year, well ahead of the 151 who died in all of 2008.

Four soldiers died Thursday in the same small district of southeastern Zabul province. Three were killed when their Stryker vehicle triggered a bomb in its path, and the fourth was shot to death in an insurgent attack, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Robert Carr. The Stryker brigade arrived in Zabul as part of the summertime buildup to try to secure the region ahead of Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election.

Meanwhile, a U.S. Marine was fatally shot while on foot patrol in southwestern Nimroz province, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a military spokesman.

Bombs planted in roads, fields and near bases now account for the majority of U.S. and NATO casualties and have proven especially dangerous in the south. With the five deaths, a total of 34 U.S. servicemen have died in Afghanistan in September. August, which was the deadliest month of the war for American troops, saw 51 deaths.

The U.S. is on track to have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of 2009, but the Pentagon said McChrystal would ask this week for as many as 40,000 more. Some question the wisdom of sending more troops to support a government facing allegations of widespread fraud in last month's disputed vote.

Preliminary results from the Aug. 20 election show President Hamid Karzai winning outright with 54.6 percent. But the election has been mired in allegations of ballot stuffing and voter coercion. If enough votes are found to be fraudulent, Karzai could dip below the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff with chief challenger Abdullah Abdullah.

The reasonable time frame for any runoff has narrowed to the last two weeks in October, before winter snows make much of the north impassable, election officials have said. Missing that window could delay any runoff until spring, creating a power vacuum in a country already struggling to fend of the resurgent Taliban and losing support from international allies.

The Afghan election commission and a panel investigating the fraud allegations agreed to audit and recount ballots from 313 of the 3,063 polling stations deemed suspicious, said Grant Kippen, the Canadian head of the fraud panel.

"It will be fair," Kippen said. "We've got these international experts who have been doing this and who have advised that this is a good approach." He said the margin of error is less than 1 percentage point.

ACCEPTING RISK

In a report to the White House, McChrystal argued that military commanders need to be less preoccupied with protecting their troops and send them out into Afghan communities more. He acknowledged this "could expose military personnel and civilians to greaterrisk in the near term" but said the payoff in terms of forging ties with the Afghan people would be worth it.

"Accepting some risk in the short term will ultimately save lives in the long run," he wrote.

The Pentagon's top militaryofficer flew to Europe to talk to McChrystal about how many troops he needs.

Two defense officials say the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, met McChrystal for a half day of talks Friday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The U.S. commanders for NATO and the Middle East region also attended. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

The officials say Mullen received McChrystal's report on how many troops he thinks he needs to defeat the insurgency.

BIN LADEN TAPE

Osama bin Laden demanded that European countries pull their troops out of Afghanistan in a new audiotape Friday, warning of retribution against them for their alliance with the United States in the war.

The al-Qaida leader denounced NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan that have killed civilians and warned that European countries would be held accountable alongside the Americans unless they withdraw from the country.

The audiotape, just under five minutes long, was posted Friday on Islamic militant Web sites. It comes after a series of al-Qaida videos this week that directly addressedGermany and threatened attacks over Berlin's military mission in Afghanistan. Those videos featured a little-known German-Algerian militant and have raised concerns among German authorities ahead of parliamentary elections.

Bin Laden's tape came as a voice-over on a video that had English and German subtitles translating his speech, along with a still photo of bin Laden in front of a map of Europe.

The al-Qaida leader predicted that American forces would soon pull out of Afghanistan, abandoning their NATO allies, and warned that al-Qaida would then retaliate against the Europeans. It was not clear whether his threat was aimed at European troops in Afghanistan or against European countries themselves.

The authenticity of the tape could not be immediately verified, though the voice resembled that on previous confirmed recordings of bin Laden. The video carried the logo of al-Qaida's media arm, Al-Sahab.

Bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders are believed to be hiding in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Information for this article was contributed by Pauline Jelinek, Anne Gearan and Omar Sinan of The Associated Press.