Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Police Blame al-Qaida for Blasts in Kabul | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page

KABUL, Afghanistan, AP -Police Tuesday blamed al-Qaida for twin suicide bombings against NATO peacekeepers in the Afghan capital. The death toll rose to eight after more bodies were found in a ditch, and security forces searched houses for more suspected attackers.

Suicide bombers rammed cars filled with explosives into NATO peacekeepers in two attacks in the Afghan capital Monday — the first major assault on foreign troops in Kabul in more than a year. Troops thwarted a suspected third bombing by shooting dead three people in a car racing toward the scene of the blasts.

Police commander Gen. Mohammed Akbar said &#34only al-Qaida has the capability&#34 to pull off such a coordinated attack.

&#34Al-Qaida is definitely behind this,&#34 he told The Associated Press.

Such seemingly coordinated attacks are unprecedented in Afghanistan, and reinforced fears that Taliban insurgents are copying tactics used in Iraq.

The bombings occurred within 90 minutes of each other on a 500-yard stretch of road near the headquarters of Afghan-U.N. election organizers. In each case, the attackers rammed their cars into NATO vehicles.

Akbar said police scouring the scene of the second suicide car bombing found six more burned bodies lying in a ditch, raising the toll from two on Monday. A spokesman for NATO”s peacekeeping force, Maj. Andrew Elmes, said the bodies were believed to be those of Afghans.

An Afghan child was also killed in the second bombing. In the initial blast, a German peacekeeper died. The new deaths brought the toll to eight, in addition to the deaths of the two suicide attackers.

The blasts underscore the challenges facing the U.S.-backed president, Hamid Karzai, as he struggles to shore up his nation”s fledgling democracy. The attacks came two days after officials released results from legislative elections in September, showing a win for Karzai”s supporters.

Kabul, home to about 3,000 foreigners and patrolled by thousands of NATO peacekeepers, had been regarded as one of the country”s safest places despite a flurry of kidnappings over the past year.

Senior Afghan officials have spoken in recent months of al-Qaida operatives entering the country to stage assaults, mostly from neighboring Pakistan. In the past two months, there have been eight suicide bombings nationwide, the deadliest in September outside an army training center in Kabul. Previously, such assaults were far less frequent.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Hanif, claimed responsibility for Monday”s attacks and warned of more suicide bombings.

&#34We will fight with every means to defeat the foreign forces,&#34 he said by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

Purported Taliban spokesmen often claim responsibility for attacks using information that later proves exaggerated or untrue. Hanif”s exact link to the Taliban leadership was not clear.

Germany Defense Minister Peter Struck said the attack showed &#34there is not a stable, quiet situation in Afghanistan&#34 and that the NATO force is still needed.

&#34We are dealing with a permanent threat,&#34 Struck said in Berlin.

ISAF has about 12,000 soldiers from 36 nations in Afghanistan and is responsible for security in Kabul as well as northern and western regions of the country. A separate 20,000-strong U.S.-led coalition is in volatile eastern and southern parts of the country.

While 86 U.S. troops have been killed this year, 24 ISAF soldiers have died, 17 of them Spanish military personnel killed when their helicopter crashed in an accident.

The first explosion Monday wounded two German soldiers in addition to killing the third, said Capt. Michele Chortese, spokesman for the NATO-led force, known as the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. Five Afghans, including two police officers, were also wounded, he said.

The second bombing set fire to a Greek military jeep and wounded three ISAF troops, said Maj. Andrew Elmes, another ISAF spokesman.

Afghan state television showed pictures of a peacekeeper carrying an Afghan man whose legs had been blown off toward an ambulance. Another man lay motionless on the ground, naked and covered in blood. Two Afghan journalists working for the U.S.-sponsored Radio Liberty were slightly wounded in the blast, said Nada Farat, one of their colleagues at the station.

Police stopped a vehicle carrying three men near the area, but the driver suddenly accelerated toward British troops nearby. The soldiers quickly opened fire, killing the three.

The vehicle then careered off the road and stopped. Security forces cordoned off the area fearing the car would explode. A local police commander, Pashtun, who uses only one name, said the troops had believed the car was laden with explosives. He said authorities were investigating.

The last major attack on the peacekeepers in the capital was in October 2004, when a militant detonated grenades strapped to his body on a shopping street, wounding three Icelandic security personnel and killing an American translator and an Afghan girl.

That came two months after a car bomb tore through the office of a U.S. contractor providing security for Karzai, killing 10 people. The Taliban claimed responsibility.