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Deadly blast at Indian embassy
07/07/2008 09:14 - (SA)
Sardar Ahmad
Kabul - A suicide bombing outside the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital on Monday killed more than 40 people, many of them civilians waiting to collect visas, an interior ministry spokesperson told reporters.
Earlier reports said the suicide bomber rammed an explosives-filled car into the gates of the Indian embassy, leaving at least seven people dead.
The blast destroyed about four cars outside the embassy in the heart of the city, and flesh and broken limbs were scattered at the scene, an Afghan witness told AFP.
"It was a suicide car bomb in front of the Indian embassy," interior ministry spokesperson Zemarai Bashary said. "There are casualties but at this time I don't have a figure."
An official at the embassy told AFP by telephone: "The embassy has been attacked." He did not comment further and other embassy staff could not be reached.
Health ministry spokesperson Abdullah Fahim said the ambulance service had taken away seven dead bodies but there could be others.
"The Kabul ambulance services alone evacuated seven dead and 19 wounded, but this is not the final figure," he said.
"We don't have the total number of casualties at this stage. Maybe there are others," Fahim said.
The powerful rush-hour blast sent a plume of brown smoke into the air and could be heard across the city centre. It shattered the windows of shops several hundred metres away, an AFP reporter said.
Police immediately sealed off the scene and kept people away.
Kabul has in recent years been hit by a series of bomb attacks, including suicide attacks, blamed on Islamic rebels - mainly the Taliban.
Asked about the Kabul blast, a spokesperson for the extremist group told AFP he was still collecting information.
The last blast in Kabul was on June 1, when a remote-controlled bomb blew up near a minivan taking Afghan army staff to work. A woman was killed and five other people wounded.
Days earlier, a suicide blast in the city struck a convoy of the US-led coalition military force which is helping Afghanistan defeat a Taliban insurgency and train its army.
The soldiers all survived but three civilians were killed.
One of the most daring rebel attacks in the city was on April 27 when militants opened fire on President Hamid Karzai as he was about to address the country's largest annual military parade.
A parliamentarian and two other Afghans were killed, but the president was unhurt. The attack shocked Afghanistan and its allies.
The Taliban were ousted in an invasion led by the United States in late 2001 after the rebels refused to hand over al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden following the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Their insurgency left 8 000 people dead last year, most of them rebels.
The international community sent about 70 000 troops to Afghanistan to help them fight the militants but the insurgency has only gained pace, notably over the past two years.
- AFP
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