A suicide car bomb exploded outside the German embassy in Kabul yesterday, killing at least two Afghans and wounding dozens more people, including US soldiers and German nationals, officials said.
The Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the blast, which was also near the largest US base in the capital and UN offices. It was the first attack on Kabul this year after a series of bloody incidents last year.
“It was a suicide bombing,” Afghan defense ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters at the scene, where a tanker, apparently for waste collection, and several cars were in flames on a debris-littered road.
PHOTO: AP
“Twenty-three people have been admitted to the hospitals. We have two martyred,” he said later.
One of the dead was a child and the other an adult male, he said.
The US military said five soldiers were wounded in the blast, revising an earlier statement that said two soldiers were killed and a dozen hurt.
“Zero US service members were killed and five were wounded,” US military spokeswoman Captain Elizabeth Mathias said.
“We had conflicting initial reports and the [first] information was not as verified as we would like it to have been,” she said.
One of the wounded soldiers was a woman, an Agence France-Presse photographer said.
The German embassy in Kabul refused to comment, but a foreign ministry official in Berlin said several staff were injured.
“From what we know for now, there are several injured among the staff and the building sustained damage,” a ministry spokesman said.
The blast was about 100m from the perimeter of Camp Eggers, the biggest US military base in Kabul, said Lieutenant Colonel Christian Kubik, another US military spokesperson.
Windows at the base were broken, but there was no significant damage, he said.
“The camp was not breached,” Kubik said.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahed, told reporters the attack was a suicide blast carried out by one of its men. The target was two German embassy vehicles in the area, he said
A witness named Ranjeet said some of the wounded were municipal cleaners.
“I saw four, five people, municipality workers, lying on the street. They were screaming and asking for help. Later ambulances came and picked them up,” he said.
Another man, Mohammad Babur, said he arrived at the scene minutes after the blast after being called by his brother who had been wounded in the explosion and was taken to hospital.
“I saw one dead body which was badly shattered. I saw several wounded,” he said.
The Afghan capital suffered a rash of attacks last year, fueling fears that the insurgency, which sees most violence in the south and east of the country, was encroaching on the capital.
On Nov. 27 a suicide car bomb also claimed by the Taliban blew up near the US embassy and killed four Afghan civilians.
The worst suicide attack on the capital was in July last year when an explosives-packed vehicle rammed into the gates of the Indian embassy, causing an explosion that killed around 60 people including two Indian diplomats.
Last year was the worst of the insurgency and military commanders have called for more troops and equipment.
The new administration of US president-elect Barack Obama is expected to send in up to 30,000 more troops in the next few months, almost doubling the number of US soldiers in the country.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS