KABUL - Afghanistan is on course for a record number of suicide bombings in 2007, a top United Nations envoy said on Sunday, the sixth anniversary of the first such attack in the insurgency-racked country.
Militants carried out 103 suicide attacks between January and the end of August this year, compared to 123 attacks during the whole of 2006, according to a new U.N. report.
Suicide bombings were unheard of in Afghanistan until al Qaeda operatives assassinated anti-Taliban Mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Masood in 2001, two days before the Sept. 11 hijacked aircraft attacks on the United States.
"Most probably we will end up with a higher number than 123 for the whole year," U.N. special representative for Afghanistan Tom Koenigs told reporters ahead of the report launch. "Suicide attacks are an increasingly common and potent weapon of the insurgency."
Attacks have multiplied in tandem with the insurgency by Islamist Taliban guerrillas, who have copied the suicide attack tactics of al Qaeda, and also against a backdrop of rising attacks in neighbouring Pakistan.
But the attacks are far less effective, killing an average of only around three people per attack, which the United Nations puts down to less extensive training and the profile of bombers, who tend to be poor, ill-educated and young -- in contrast to suicide bombers elsewhere in the world.
Suicide attacks killed 305 people in 2006. Of 183 Afghans killed by suicide bombers during the first half of 2007, 121 were civilians -- even though attacks target Afghan government and security forces as well as foreign troops.
ATTACKS UP, BUT MORE AVERTED
