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Kabul blast kills four near embassy

Afghan security guards investigate at the site of an explosion near the US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

A suicide car bomb blew up near the US embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul yesterday, killing at least four Afghans and wounding nearly 20 more, officials said.

The blast, about 100m from the heavily secured entrance to the embassy, damaged several vehicles while the area was packed with morning rush-hour traffic.

A large pool of blood smeared the road and a tree was set alight.

The interior ministry said the target appeared to have been a passing convoy of foreign troops, but witnesses said there was no such convoy.

International military forces in the capital could not immediately comment.

“The information we have so far is that four people have been killed and three wounded. It was a suicide attack,” a city police chief, General Alishah Paktiawal, said at the scene.

The heavily barricaded US embassy, with the entire road running past it blocked to traffic, was closed yesterday for the Thanksgiving holiday.

“All embassy staff are accounted for,” US embassy spokesman Mark Stroh said.

An AFP reporter saw at least 10 wounded people removed from the scene in ambulances and police cars. The body of the suicide attacker lay on the ground near the destroyed remains of the car used to carry the bomb, he said.

There were three dead bodies and 18 wounded in the city’s hospital, health ministry spokesman Abdullah Fahim said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast with the radical Taliban and Haqqani networks said to be behind the growing number of attacks in the capital.

A man who has a cookie shop in the area said it appeared the suicide car bomber had had an accident and not hit his intended target.

“A Corolla vehicle came at high speed and had an accident with a white civilian Corolla here and then we heard a big explosion,” 20-year-old Arif Hussain said.

“There was no army, police or foreign forces in the area at the time. It seems the blast was triggered by the accident. He was driving very fast somewhere when he [had] the accident,” he said, adding that he saw the bodies of two men torn apart by the blast.

The Afghan capital has suffered a rash of attacks this year, fueling fears that a Taliban-led insurgency, which mostly attacks in the south and east of the country, is encroaching on the capital.

The Taliban movement claimed responsibility for an Oct. 30 attack in which a suicide bomber at the information and culture ministry building in the city center and killed five people.

A suicide attack outside the Indian embassy in July killed about 60 people.


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