/ 29 October 2011

Four killed in suicide attack on Nato convoy in Kabul

A suicide bomber exploded his car next to a convoy of foreign forces travelling through the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, killing three civilians and one policeman.

A police spokesperson said the attacker detonated his Toyota Sedan car at close to the destroyed Dar-ul-Aman palace in the southwest of the city, and the area was now blocked by Afghan and international forces.

“I can confirm a suicide attack on Dar-ul-Aman road of Kabul on a convoy of foreign forces,” said Hashmat Stanikzai.

Footage on private television channel Tolo showed coalition forces tending to at least one casualty on the ground while fire trucks and ambulances, sirens blaring, were on their way to the scene.

Water was being sprayed on one charred vehicle lying on its side.

A spokesperson for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force said it was aware of an incident but the force could not give further details until further information had been gathered.

Siddiq Siddiqui, an interior ministry spokesperson, confirmed the attack but also had no immediate information on casualties.

At around the same time in the eastern city of Asadabad in Kunar province, a female suicide bomber blew herself up outside a local branch of Afghanistan’s spy agency, a spokesperson for the Kunar provincial governor said.

The woman struck outside the local operations centre for the National Directorate of Security, said spokesperson Wasifullah Wasifi.

“As a result of the explosion two guards of the operative directorate were wounded,” he said.

The attacks come a day after the Taliban launched a four-hour long assault on a US-run civilian-military base and local branch of the security directorate in the southern city of Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace of the insurgent movement. — AFP