28 killed, 141 wounded in blast in Afghan capital

By AMIR SHAH

The Associated Press

July 06, 2008

A suicide car bomb exploded outside the Indian Embassy in central Kabul on Monday, killing 28 people and wounding 141 in the deadliest attack this year in the Afghan capital, officials said.

The massive bomb exploded near a row of metal turnstiles outside the embassy, where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas. The embassy is located on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistan's Interior Ministry in the city center.

Several nearby shops were damaged or destroyed in the blast, and smoldering ruins covered the street. The explosion rattled much of the Afghan capital.

'Several shopkeepers have died. I have seen shopkeepers under the rubble,' said Ghulam Dastagir, a shopkeeper who was wounded in the blast.

Abdullah Fahim, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said the explosion killed at least 28 people and wounded 141. The ministry collected information from the scene and several Kabul hospitals.

The explosion was the deadliest attack in Kabul since a suicide bomber attacked an army bus last September, killing 30 people.

Shortly after the attack, a woman ran out of a Kabul hospital screaming, crying and hitting her face with both of her hands. Her two children, a girl named Lima and a boy named Mirwais, had been killed.

'Oh my God!' the woman screamed. 'They are both dead.'

Afghanistan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta visited the embassy shortly after the attack, ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmed Baheen said.

'India and Afghanistan have a deep relationship between each other. Such attacks of the enemy will not harm our relations,' Spanta told the embassy staff, according to Baheen.

The Indian ambassador and his deputy were not inside the embassy at the time of the blast, Baheen said.

Militants have frequently attacked Indian offices and projects around Afghanistan since launching an insurgency after the ouster of the Taliban at the end of the 2001. Many Taliban militants have roots in Pakistan, which has long had a troubled relationship with India.

While Afghanistan has seen increasing violence in recent months, Kabul has been largely spared the random bomb attacks that Taliban militants use in their fight against Afghan and international troops.

In September 2006, a suicide bomber near the gates of the Interior Ministry killed 12 people and wounded 42 others. After that blast, additional guards and barriers were posted on the street.

In two separate bombings Monday against police convoys in the country's south, seven officers were killed and 10 others were wounded, officials said.

In Uruzgan province, a roadside bomb killed four police on patrol and wounded seven others, said provincial police chief Juma Gul Himat.

In the Zhari district of Kandahar, another roadside blast killed three officers and wounded three others, said district chief Niyaz Mohammad Sarhadi.