A suicide attacker rammed an explosives-filled car into a United States embassy convoy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Monday, wounding five embassy staff and guards and at least three passers-by, officials said.
The fiery attack, which damaged a number of bullet-proof diplomatic vehicles, was the first suicide bombing inside Kabul this year after several deadly blasts last year blamed on Taliban insurgents.
A “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device” struck a US embassy convoy of civilian vehicles on a road heading to the eastern city of Jalalabad, the embassy said in a statement.
“There were several injuries, including one American who was evacuated and is being treated at this time in Afghanistan,” the embassy said in a statement.
US ambassador Ronald Neumann was not in the convoy.
A spokesperson for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force said, citing the embassy, that five embassy staff were injured.
“A single white Toyota Corolla rammed the convoy, detonating explosives. The attacker was killed, there are five wounded from the embassy — embassy security personnel, we think,” Colonel Tom Collins said.
Public Health Ministry director Salam Jalali said three Afghans were injured in the blast and evacuated to local hospitals for treatment.
An investigator at the scene and an eyewitness told Agence France-Presse they had seen at least one child being taken to hospital by ambulance.
An Afghan blacksmith, who runs a workshop near the explosion site, said the attacker appeared to have hit the convoy from the opposite direction.
“I saw a person being thrown from one of the vehicles. I saw an Afghan child wounded and taken to hospital,” said the blacksmith, named only Esmatullah.
Foreign troops immediately sealed off the area.
The vehicle used in the attack was still burning about half an hour after the attack and damaged four-by-four vehicles were pulled to the side of Jalalabad Road.
Many of the suicide blasts in Afghanistan last year were on the same road, which is often used by troops travelling to the main US base at Bagram, about 60km from the capital, and passes various other bases.
In the deadliest this year, more than 20 people — including two Americans and a South Korean soldier — were killed on February 27 when an attacker blew himself up outside the Bagram base while US Vice-President Dick Cheney was visiting. — AFP