A suicide car bomb attack targeted NATO troops in the Afghan capital yesterday, killing up to 20 people near parliament in one of the deadliest strikes on Kabul in more than a year, officials said.
The Taliban, the militia leading a nearly nine-year insurgency against the Western-backed government, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The bomber reduced the busy rush hour to blood and chaos on a clogged street near parliament, a foreign-fun hospital, an army recruitment center and the water and energy ministry. The American University of Afghanistan is just across the road and the Kabul museum about 100m away.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed one of its convoys had been hit and said a casualty assessment was under way.
“An ISAF convoy was hit. At the moment we’re trying to confirm the number of ISAF casualties,” spokesman Lieutenant-Commander Iain Baxter told reporters.
Asked if he could confirm any ISAF casualties, the spokesman said: “We’re still confirming how many ISAF casualties have been caused.”
Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said that at least 12 civilians were killed and 47 wounded, most of whom had been traveling in a bus that passed when the suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives.
Children and women were among the dead and wounded, Bashary said.
Afghan army chief military doctor, General Ahmad Zia Yaftali said at least 20 people died.
Ambulances were seen speeding off carrying the wounded through Kabul streets heavily clogged with traffic, a reporter said.
Several SUV-type vehicles used by Western military troops and diplomats, were damaged at the bombsite, where Afghan and US security forces were investigating, an Agence France-Presse photographer said.
Yesterday’s bombing was the first major attack in Kabul since Feb. 26, when Taliban suicide bombers targeted guesthouses, killing 16 people including Westerners and Indians in one the deadliest attacks on foreigners.
Yaftali’s death toll of 20 would make it the deadliest attack in the capital since the Taliban launched suicide bomb and gun attacks on three Afghan government buildings on Feb. 11 last year, killing at least 26 people.
Zabihullah Mujahed, a Taliban spokesman called reporters from an undisclosed location to claim responsibility.
“The attack, which was a suicide car bomb, was carried out by one of our mujahidin,” he said.
The Taliban had vowed to unleash a new nationwide campaign of attacks from May 10 that would target diplomats, members of the Afghan parliament, foreign contractors as well as foreign forces.
Meanwhile, rescuers yesterday stepped up the search for a plane carrying 44 people that crashed in the mountains of northern Afghanistan on Monday, an official said.
Over 24 hours after the plane lost radio contact over the treacherous Hindu Kush mountains, the prospect of finding survivors appeared difficult as anguished relatives massed at the foot of the mountain-pass near Salang.
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