Kabul suicide blast claims lives

13/03/2008| IslamWeb

A suicide attack aimed at foreign soldiers near the airport in Kabul has killed at least six Afghan civilians and wounded 20 more, according to officials.

General Salim Ahsas, the Afghan capital's police chief, said Thursday's blast did not kill or injure multinational forces who were traveling on the road to Kabul's international airport.

Six Afghan civilians were killed and up to 20 others were wounded in the blast, Munir Mangal, the deputy interior minister, said.

The attacker was driving a white Toyota Corolla, he said, a favorite among suicide car bombers.

The blast took place during morning rush hour on one of Kabul's busiest roads.

The force of the blast damaged about 10 cars, General Ali Shah Paktiawal, head of the police criminal investigation branch, said.

The wounded were taken to different hospitals in the city, he said.

US convoy targeted

Al Jazeera's correspondent Bernard Smith, speaking from the site of the blast, said the bomber appeared to have targeted a US military convoy.

One of the vehicles was totally destroyed but its passengers somehow survived the blast though not without injuries, he said.

Later, Lieutenant-Colonel David Johnson, a spokesman for US forces, said none of the four American soldiers traveling in a two-vehicle convoy were badly wounded.

Several other vehicles were damaged in the explosion.

The Kabul assault came a day after attacks on two Nato convoys elsewhere that killed five civilians and wounded four foreign soldiers.

Canadians targeted

In one incident, a suicide car bomber struck a convoy of Canadian troops in the southern city of Kandahar, killing a passer-by and wounding a soldier.

The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack.

In the other, in neighboring Zabul province, a roadside bomb exploded close to a vehicle carrying Romanian troops, wounding three of them.

The ongoing violence provides a bloody backdrop for a move by the UN Security Council to appoint a special envoy to Afghanistan.

The official will be asked to improve co-ordination between Nato forces and the Kabul government.

A briefing from the under-secretary general for peacekeeping said on Wednesday that the world community "sometimes has not been sufficiently united" in it's strategy for Afghanistan.

Jean-Marie Guehenno said: "The UN bears a share of the responsibility for the insufficient co-ordination for the international community.

"We are working to correct that."

PHOTO CAPTION 

Body of a civilian lies near the site after a suicide attack on a U.S. troops in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 13, 2008.

Al-Jazeera