KABUL, Sept 8: A huge car bomb exploded near the U.S. embassy in Kabul on Friday, killing at least 16 people including up to seven foreigners, the worst suicide attack in the city since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001.
“Some of them turned into pieces,” a policeman said as rescue crews hosed down fires and washed blood and body parts from the road, metres from the entrance to the embassy.
Police and rescue officials said at least 16 people, including up to seven foreign soldiers or security contractors, were killed in the explosion that stripped trees, wrecked cars and shattered windows for several hundred metres in either direction.
Taliban rebels told Reuters by satellite phone they carried out the attack, but did not say what the target was.
The U.S. military said at last two of its personnel were killed in the attack.
“There are parts of body, blood and pieces of meat, shrapnel and broken glass everywhere,” said Ahmad Zia Babori, who runs one of several pharmacies along one side of the road, across from a string of family restaurants.
Dead bodies, mangled and mouths gaping, lay beside the road.
The attack was unusual. Normally, militants do not strike on Fridays. But they have begun changing tactics as they have grown stronger over the past year or so.
WORSE THAN IRAQ: Analysts say the Taliban and their allies are the strongest they have been since they were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001 in the wake of Sept 11.
Some officials say the violence in Afghanistan is now worse than in Iraq.
While most of the violence has come in the Taliban’s southern heartland, there have been increasing attacks in Kabul.
Nato leaders are pressing member countries to send more troops to the volatile south of the country after a high-level delegation visited this week, highlighting divisions over where and how some countries deploy their forces.—Reuters
