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WYFF/APA suicide bombing last week on a fortified Kandahar guesthouse shared by Western contracting companies killed four Afghans and injured several Americans. An Afghan engineer was shot dead in March as he helped inspect a school not far from the Pakistan border. An Afghan woman who worked for a U.S.-based consulting firm was shot by motorbike-riding gunmen as she headed home in this southern city.
Attacks on U.S. contractors, construction companies and aid organizations have been rising just as the United States pushes faster development of Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, as a priority in its strategy to counter the insurgency.
The number of contractor attacks is elusive since the workers are from many nations and work for a number of different organizations, but the toll has jumped precipitously since President Barack Obama launched a massive troop surge last December.
Of the 289 civilians working for U.S. contractors killed between the start of the Afghanistan war in late 2001 and the end of last year, 100 died in just the last six months of 2009, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.more:
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