July 08, 2008	Tuesday	Rajab 4, 1429

KABUL, July 7: Forty-one people, including Indian military attache and a political counsellor, were killed when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into India’s embassy here on Monday, officials said.

The deadliest attack in Kabul since the 2001 fall of the Taliban also left nearly 150 people wounded.

The blast in the heart of the city scattered human flesh and severed limbs in front of the embassy compound, tearing down an outside security office and part of a wall.

“The toll of casualties we have so far is 41 martyred and 147 wounded. Among those killed are six policemen,” Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

Many of the dead were Afghans collecting Indian visas.

The Indian embassy’s military attache and a political counsellor were killed along with two Indian guards.

The body of one of the diplomats was flung onto the roof of the embassy and only found hours later, officials said.

Indian ambassador Jayan Prasad, who was not hurt in the explosion heard across the city centre, said the suicide attacker rammed the diplomats’ vehicle as it was entering through the gates of the embassy compound.

The Taliban have carried out a wave of suicide bombings across the country in the past seven years, but a spokesman for the movement denied his group was involved in Monday’s attack.

“We have not done it,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said.

The Afghan interior ministry said “terrorists” had carried out the attack “in coordination and with advice from regional intelligence circles.” Asked if this was a reference to Pakistan, Bashary declined to comment.

President Karzai blamed the “enemies” of the good relationship between Afghanistan and India. He telephoned Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to offer his condolences and said his government would do all it could to find the attackers, his office said in a statement.—AFP