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Roadside bomb hits a Kandahar taxi, killing five

A roadside explosion killed at least five people and wounded 32 others in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar yesterday, police said.

A bomb blast hit a taxi carrying four women and two children, and injured others sitting in a nearby restaurant in the downtown Ahazrat Jibaba area of the city, said deputy provincial police chief General Salim Khan.

Dr. Azizullah Jan at Kandahar's Mirwais hospital said four men and one child were killed, and 32 others wounded.

American and Romanian forces based in Kandahar cordoned off the busy commercial area, which is crowded with shops and restaurants. The shoes and turbans of the wounded were scattered on the bloodstained street. The taxi, a three-wheeled tuk-tuk and two motorbikes were badly damaged by the blast.

Naimat Khan, who was sitting inside a roadside restaurant when the blast happened, said he helped put the wounded in passing vehicles and sent them to the hospital.

"Many people sitting outside were seriously wounded," he said. "Some people were covered in blood. I saw one man with his hand cut off from his body."

Police said the blast went off as the taxi traveled down the street, taking the women and children to a Muslim shrine. All six passengers were badly hurt.

Hundreds of bystanders gathered at the scene as American forces searched the area of the blast.

Jan, the hospital doctor, said that 19 of the wounded were sent to the US base at Kandahar for medical treatment.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which breaks a relative lull in violence in Afghanistan and could shake US military confidence that the resistance of Taliban-led militants is fading.
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