4 Marines from Twentynine Palms killed in Afghanistan roadside blast

- In the worst single attack on U.S. or coalition forces in Afghanistan this year, four Marines from a unit based at Twentynine Palms were killed by a roadside bomb today, the military reported. A fifth Marine was wounded in the attack.

Military spokesmen provided no details of the bombing pending notification of next of kin. The Marines, from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, arrived in Afghanistan in April to help train and mentor struggling Afghan national police units in Farah and Helmand provinces in southwestern Afghanistan.

The attack came a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced that in May, the monthly total of American and coalition combat deaths in Afghanistan exceeded the total in Iraq for the first time.

The casualties brought the U.S. death toll in Afghanistan to at least 44 so far this year. The previous worst single attack in 2008 killed two Americans.

The roadside bomb struck a Humvee in Farah province, where the Marine battalion operates bases in conjunction with Afghan police.

A United Nations survey released earlier this year said violence in 2007 had reached its highest level in Afghanistan since an offensive by the United States toppled the Taliban in 2001. Violence has continued at high rates this year as Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., have pursued and killed Taliban fighters along their infiltration routes in southern Helmand province.

The Taliban has grown increasingly bold in recent months, especially in the south and west, and near the extremists’ former stronghold, Kandahar.

On Friday, in a sophisticated attack that a Taliban spokesman said had been planned for months, insurgents blew open the gates of a prison in Kandahar. The jailbreak freed 870 prisoners, among them 390 Taliban members, Sayed Afgh Saqib, the police chief of Kandahar province, said in a telephone interview Saturday.

A truck packed with explosives detonated, destroying the front gate and a police post, killing all officers inside. At the same time, an explosion ripped through a rear wall, Afghan officials said.

Moments later, rockets fired from inside the compound struck an upper prison floor, causing it to collapse, said Mohammed Qasim Hashimzai, Afghanistan’s deputy justice minister.

Officials had no reason to believe the militants had assistance from anyone inside the prison, Hashimzai said. But as a precaution, the prison’s director, Abdul Qabir, was being investigated for any evidence of his involvement, he said.

At least nine police officers and several prisoners were killed, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

In a telephone interview from an undisclosed location, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who said he was a spokesman for the Taliban, said the attackers included 30 men on motorbikes and two suicide bombers. Ahmadi said the assault had been planned for two months.

There was no word Saturday on whether any of the escaped Taliban were members of the group’s top leadership.

The prison attack was the third brazen operation mounted this year by insurgents in Afghanistan.

In January, a group of militants blasted its way past heavy security at Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, killing several people. In April, insurgents mounted an assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a parade in Kabul. They smuggled weapons into a building near the parade ground despite days of heightened security throughout the capital.

Karzai was hustled away, as were other dignitaries at the event, including the U.S. and British ambassadors. Afghanistan’s defense minister later said that an Afghan police captain and an army officer were involved in the plot.

 david.zucchino@latimes.com

Times staff writer Zucchino reported from Helmand province and special correspondent Faiez from Kabul.