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KABUL, June 17: A Taliban bomber blew up a police bus in the heart of Kabul on Sunday, killing 24 people in one of the deadliest suicide strikes to hit Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.
The blast tore apart the bus, wounding dozens of bystanders, wrecking several other vehicles and scattering body parts. It was the fifth suicide attack in three days in the country, suggesting an escalation in use of the tactic.
Official death tolls changed throughout the day, reflecting chaos at the scene and in hospitals. Police initially said more than 35 people were killed, but officials revised that down to 24.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, calling it an attempt to block the training of Afghanistan’s Western-led police force.
“The enemies of Afghanistan have lost the capability to fight our forces face to face and are resorting to these cowardly tactics,” said Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbel, who gave the final figure of 24 dead.
The interior ministry said five of the wounded were foreigners, including two Japanese, a Korean and two Pakistanis.
Earlier reports that foreigners had been killed proved false.
A police officer at the scene, outside the Kabul police chief’s headquarters, said he had seen the bomber leap on to the bus as it was moving slowly away, its door wide open.
“It was a very, very successful suicide attack,” a Taliban commander, Mullah Hayatullah Khan, told Reuters by satellite phone. “We have plans for more successful attacks in future.”
HOSPITAL CHAOS: Eighteen bodies, mostly police officers, and 10 wounded had been taken to the nearby Jamhuriat Hospital, a doctor there said.
Crowds mobbed the hospital to check if relatives and friends were among the dead and injured.
The body of a police officer lay on the grass, shrouded in a sheet and surrounded by blood-soaked garments. A male relative wailed into a mobile phone, while friends tried to console him.
The bomb exploded during the morning rush hour, at a time when buses are ferrying police officers to their beats.
The spate of suicide bombs follows claims by Afghan, Nato and US-led coalition forces to have subdued insurgents in an aggressive spring campaign against the Taliban strongholds in the south and east.
On Friday and Saturday there were four suicide attacks in the south, centre and north of the country, including a blast in Kabul on Saturday. At least 14 people were killed in those attacks, including a Dutch soldier.
BORDER POST ASSAULT: In Heart, the Taliban attacked a remote customs office on Afghanistan’s border with Iran overnight, killing two policemen but losing eight of their own fighters, police said on Sunday.
The fighting at the remote Qalat-i-Nazar Khan border post in Herat lasted four hours, the top police commander for the country’s western provinces, Rahmatullah Safi, told AFP.
“Eight Taliban were killed and two policemen were also martyred,” he said.
Mr Safi said it appeared that the rebels wanted to capture the border post, but he could not say which side of the border they had come from.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said last week `substantial’ quantities of Iranian weapons were flowing into Afghanistan, and other US and British officials have backed the statement. There has, however, been no proof the weapons are provided by Iranian authorities, who have strongly denied involvement.
President Karzai and other Afghan officials have also ruled out Tehran’s involvement.
—Reuters/AFP
