A suicide attacker blew himself up among a crowd of Afghan laborers lining up to enter a NATO base in eastern Afghanistan early yesterday, killing 10 and wounding 14, an official said.
The attack, similar to scores carried out by the extremist Taliban movement that is waging a vicious insurgency backed by the al-Qaeda terror network, was the deadliest of a handful of suicide blasts this year.
The bomber, who appeared to have been on foot, detonated his load of explosives outside a gate of an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base near the eastern city of Khost.
"Ten civilians were killed and 14 injured," Qasim Jan, an aide to the provincial governor, said.
The crowd was waiting to pass security checks to enter the base to start the day's work, Jan said.
As officials scrambled to confirm details with the area cordoned off by foreign security forces, the president's office had a slightly lower toll based on initial reports.
"Six of our compatriots, innocent civilian laborers who had come to work to feed their families, were martyred in the suicide blast in Khost today," a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai told reporters in Kabul.
"Around 10 were wounded. The president is saddened by the incident and has ordered the provincial governor to help the affected families," spokesman Karim Rahimi said.
There were no ISAF casualties, spokeswoman Angela Billings said in Kabul.
Police spokesman Zemarai Bashary could not immediately give details of casualties.
"We cannot say -- the area was blocked by the coalition forces and no one was allowed in," he said.
Foreign troops cordoned off the area nearly 1km from the blast site and did not allow anyone to enter.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but suicide attacks are a hallmark of the Taliban-led insurgency that kicked off when the hardline Islamic movement was driven from power by US-led forces in 2001.
The extremists have carried out several attacks on Afghans employed by the foreign military forces in Afghanistan and warned them against taking such jobs.
There were nearly 140 such attacks in the country last year, up from 27 in 2005, US officials said.
ISAF said it recorded nearly 120 suicide blasts last year. They killed close to 200 civilians, 54 Afghan security force members and 19 ISAF troops.
There have already been a number of suicide blasts around the country this year, but yesterday's was the deadliest.
Eastern Afghanistan has seen a sharp rise in attacks since the Pakistani government last year reached a peace deal with militants and tribal elders in North Waziristan, which was meant to stop cross-border infiltration.
Military officials said last week there had been nearly a fourfold increase in cross-border attacks in a 60-day period after the deal was finalized in September.
Last year was the deadliest in the insurgency in Afghanistan, with approximately 4,000 people killed.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS