Suicide bomber kills 3 Nato personnel in Kabul

KABUL: (MEP) – A Taliban suicide attacker detonated an explosives-packed car next to a Nato military convoy in Kabul on Friday, killing three Nato personnel and injuring six civilian passers-by, officials said.

The blast in the Afghan capital left the twisted remains of the attacker’s car spread across the scene along with several other badly-damaged vehicles, including a Nato sports utility vehicle, witnesses said.

“Three International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) service members died following a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack in Kabul, Afghanistan today,” a statement from the Nato mission said.

Isaf did not release the nationality of the dead, in line with coalition policy to leave identification to national authorities.

The attack occurred on a main road that passes near to a series of government compounds and Isaf military facilities in Kabul on the way to the eastern city of Jalalabad.

“A car packed with explosives was detonated by a suicide bomber… as a result six of our civilian countrymen were injured,” the ministry of interior said in a statement.

An AFP reporter said that ambulances, firefighters and armoured vehicles from the US-led Isaf mission in Afghanistan rushed to the blast site, which was quickly cordoned off by police.

“I was in my bakery shop when I heard a bang that shattered all the windows,” Nehmatullah, who uses only one name, told AFP.

“I saw at least two bodies lying on the street and covered in blood, then came two vehicles of foreign forces and the soldiers pulled out two bodies of foreigners from a damaged black SUV.”

Isaf and Afghan security forces removed damaged vehicles using trucks and transporters.

Among the injured being treated in a nearby hospital was a middle-aged Afghan man with wounds to his head and hands.

Isaf troops travel through Kabul in fast-moving and heavily protected convoys, but they have regularly been targeted by Taliban militants fighting a 12-year insurgency against the US-backed government.

“A martyrdom suicide attack took place in the 9th district of Kabul on a guesthouse of invading forces… a convoy of foreign forces was passing,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mijahid said in a statement.

“In the attack, 12 Americans soldiers were killed and a number of them were wounded, and a number of their vehicles were also damaged.”

The Taliban routinely exaggerate death tolls after attacks.

In May, 15 people, including two US soldiers and four Isaf contractors, were killed in a similar car bomb that targeted a convoy in Kabul.