3 hurt in Taliban attack on NATO convoy
Print Edition
A Taliban suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy in central Kabul yesterday, triggering a powerful blast in an attack that came two weeks after the resurgent militant group overran a key northern city.
The rush-hour bombing, which sent a plume of smoke into the sky, wounded at least three civilians, including a child, as the Taliban ramped up its attacks on government and foreign targets.
The intensity of the blast sent an armored vehicle crashing into a sidewalk, its front end badly mangled, and left the area littered with charred pieces of twisted metal.
“The incident took place while a suicide car bomber detonated an explosive-packed car in the Joy Shir area ... of Kabul city,” the interior ministry said, adding that the attacker’s target was “a foreign forces convoy.”
Security forces cordoned off the area as ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the scene, but officials said the human toll of the blast was limited.
“The ministry of interior condemns in the strongest terms the suicide attack, which resulted in the wounding of three civilians,” it said.
The Kabul police said the wounded included a woman and a child.
A NATO spokesman in Kabul confirmed that its convoy came under attack, but said it was still gathering information.
The emboldened insurgents have stepped up attacks around Afghanistan since they launched their annual summer offensive in late April.
The Taliban captured the northern city of Kunduz on September 28, their most spectacular victory in 14 years.
The seizure of the provincial capital for three days was a blow to western-trained Afghan forces, which have largely been fighting on their own since the end of NATO’s combat mission in December.
The Taliban said that yesterday’s bombing was carried out to avenge the recent “barbaric bombardment” in Kunduz by foreign and government forces.
“A Toyota sedan packed with explosives was used in the attack. Two military tanks were destroyed and 12 foreigners were killed,” the group’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.
The Taliban, toppled from power in a 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, are known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
The government claims to have wrested back control of Kunduz but sporadic firefights continue with pockets of insurgents as Afghan soldiers, backed by NATO special forces, conduct clearance operations.
As fighting spreads in neighboring Badakhshan, Takhar and Baghlan provinces, concerns are mounting that the seizure of Kunduz was merely the opening gambit in a new, bolder strategy to tighten the insurgency’s grip across northern Afghanistan.
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