Kabul, Afghanistan — A suicide
bomber on a motorbike blew himself up next to a
minibus carrying members of Afghanistan's main
intelligence service on Wednesday, killing at least
two people and injuring more than 30 others. It
was the second bombing in the capital in eight
days, representing a small but worrying uptick in
attacks inside Kabul.
At almost the same time, a remote-controlled
bomb killed the deputy intelligence chief in the
eastern province of Kunar, along with his driver,
officials said.
Rounding out a violent day, the NATO force said
three of its troops were killed Wednesday by an
improvised explosive device in eastern
Afghanistanin eastern Afghanistan, and a fourth in
the south, also in an IED blast. Their nationalities
were not disclosed, but the bulk of forces in both
those areas are Americans.
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The Kabul explosion, on a crowded road in the
western part of the city during morning rush
hour, came as Vice President Joe Biden was
concluding a visit to the Afghan capital, where he
had talks Tuesday with President Hamid Karzai.
But the vice president, who departed for Pakistan
about 90 minutes after the blast, was nowhere
near the attack, and there was no indication it was
aimed at him.
The Taliban took responsibility for both bombings
and boasted that the one in Kabul had killed 14
people. It is not unusual for the movement to
make exaggerated claims.
The head of the criminal investigation department
for the Kabul police, Gen. Mohammad Zahir,
identified the dead as one officer from the National
Directorate of Security, the country's premier
intelligence service, and one civilian, in addition to
the bomber. Six of the 32 injured were NDS
personnel, he said, and the remainder were
civilian passers-by.
The toll could still rise, officials said, because at
least two of those hurt suffered critical injuries.
The attack took place near the ruins of a former
imperial palace, close to the city's main
psychiatric hospital. Zahir noted that motorists
usually try to avoid even honking their horns in
the vicinity of the asylum, so as not to frighten or
disturb the patients inside.
"But the person who committed such a
harrowing and brutal incident in front of the
psychiatric hospital can't be counted as human,"
he said.
Karzai condemned the bombing, as did the U.S.
Embassy and NATO's International Security
Assistance Force. All decried in particular the loss
of civilian life.
Recently, Western military officials had pointed to
a drop in attacks inside Kabul, and linked that
decrease at least in part to the success of targeted
strikes against the Haqqani network, a Taliban
offshoot based in Pakistan's tribal area of North
Waziristan. The Haqqanis were responsible for a
number of spectacular attacks in the capital
during 2008 and 2009.
Prior to last week's bombing in Kabul, which
killed a policeman, a December attack on a
military bus on the city's outskirts killed five
Afghan army personnel. But before that, there
had been no major strike inside Kabul since May
of last year, when a suicide bomber attacked a
convoy carrying senior Western military officials,
killing 18 people. The dead in that strike included
six members of the NATO force, several of them
high-ranking officers.
The Taliban statement said the bomber in
Wednesday's attack was a "mujahid" -- a holy
warrior -- from Paktia, in eastern Afghanistan.
That province borders the tribal areas and is part
of the Haqqani network's main area of operations.
It was not clear whether the Kabul attack was
planned as a strike against the intelligence service
or whether the minibus was simply a target of
opportunity. But the nearly simultaneous attack in
Kunar province suggested that the NDS was
specifically targeted.
The Afghan intelligence services are thought to
have played a supporting role in months of
strikes by Western and Afghan troops against
mid-level Taliban commanders, which the NATO
force says have damaged the movement's field-
command structure.
The Taliban claim of responsibility in the Kabul
attack made note of the fact that the vehicle that
was hit had carried intelligence personnel, but the
statement was issued after that fact had already
been mentioned in news reports.
Sometimes, would-be attackers on motorcycles
will simply maneuver through Kabul's heavy
traffic, searching for any vehicle or convoy that
appears to be carrying Afghan security
personnel, Western troops or government
dignitaries.
Source: Http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-bombing-20110113,0,2066142.story
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