A “COMPLEX” ambush involving a suicide car bomb and militant gunfire killed 16 Afghan civilians and wounded 25 people during an attack on a coalition convoy in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, officials said.

The suicide bomber hit the American convoy with an explosives-packed minivan, said Noor Agha Zawok, the spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, and militants then fired gunfire from several directions, the U.S. military said.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the Afghans were killed by the militants gunfire or that of the U.S. soldiers.

Hundreds of Afghans gathered to protest the violence, with some shouting “Death to America! Death to Karzai,” a reference to President Hamid Karzai.

(SD-Agencies)