A suicide car bomber blew himself up near a convoy at the biggest US base in Afghanistan yesterday, as the number of coalition soldiers killed in combat in the past week in the country rose to seven.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide blast which wounded two children near the Bagram air base north of Kabul, saying the attacker was acting in revenge for the killing of two of his brothers in a traffic accident involving a US military vehicle.
The latest violence comes amid some of the worst insurgency-linked bloodshed in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was ousted in late 2001 by a coalition led by the US.
PHOTO: AFP
Police said a station-wagon laden with explosives had veered towards a coalition convoy a kilometer outside the Bagram base and exploded.
The suicide bomber was killed and his vehicle blown to pieces, said Yousuf Stanizai, spokesman for the interior ministry.
"Two children were wounded," he said.
A coalition spokesman at Bagram, which is about 50km north of Kabul, confirmed there had been a bomb blast but did not immediately know the cause.
There were no coalition casualties, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Fitzpatrick said.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif, said the blast was carried out by an Afghan man who had "sworn to take his revenge from Americans since his two brothers were killed in the American accident."
He was referring to a May 29 crash in which a US military truck from Bagram lost control after a brake failure and plowed into a dozen civilians cars at the northern entrance of the city. Around five Afghans were killed.
The crash set off a day of rioting that was the worst violence the capital had seen since the Taliban were toppled from government in late 2001. At the end of the day, about 20 people were dead.
The attacker used "Taliban facilities" to carry out the attack, Hanif said by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.
Meanwhile, the latest coalition fatality came during combat operations in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said yesterday.
The soldier, whose nationality was not released, died from wounds sustained in the battle in Kunar Province bordering Pakistan on Sunday.
The coalition announced at the weekend that two more soldiers had died from wounds received in a battle in southern Kandahar Province in which around 45 Tali-ban fighters were killed.
And last Wednesday four US soldiers were killed in clashes with militants in Nuristan Province.
Forty-four coalition soldiers have now died in combat in Afghanistan this year, around half of them Americans.
Almost 200 rebels have been also been killed in the past two weeks as part of Operation Mountain Thrust in the troubled south, the biggest coalition and Afghan army anti-Taliban drive yet, according to Afghan figures.
While Taliban-linked attacks are still focused in southern and eastern Afghanistan, they are increasing in other parts of the country, adding to fears of a Taliban comeback five years after the extremists were toppled.
But President Hamid Karzai said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that the resurgent militia was no threat to his government or the international coalition fighting in the country.
"They exist in the form of attacking schools, attacking children, killing innocent people, killing clergy, harassing road workers, engineers. They are no match for our power. They are no match for our fighting ability," he said.
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