2 U.S. TROOPS AND 11 AFGHAN CIVILIANS KILLED FRIDAY

By AMIR SHAH, ROHAN SULLIVAN
Associated Press Writers, Associated Press Writers

updated 7:00 a.m. CT, Fri., June 11, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan - Two U.S. troops and at least 11 civilians died in violence across southern Afghanistan on Friday, including one attack in which a suicide bomber wearing a burqa blew himself up in a bazaar.

Violence has spiked recently in Afghanistan's volatile south as Taliban insurgents step up attacks ahead of a planned major operation by NATO forces to secure the main city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in Brussels on Friday that insurgents have killed 59 Afghans during the past seven days, 54 of them in Kandahar. He told NATO ministers that insurgents also wounded 116, including 94 in Kandahar.