Suicide bomber kills at least 30 in Afghanistan

The Taliban claimed
responsibility for the attack.

WASHINGTON POST

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber dressed as a soldier boarded an Afghan National Army bus in Kabul early Saturday and detonated his explosives, killing at least 30 people and injuring 29, Afghan security officials said.

The massive explosion, one of the deadliest suicide attacks in Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion almost six years ago, ripped through the roof and sides off the bus, leaving it an unrecognizable mass of twisted and charred metal. The blast broke shop windows as far as a block away and scattered splinters of glass, chunks of flesh and shards of metal for hundreds of yards.

The Taliban, a group of Islamic extremists allied with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, asserted responsibility for the bombing in a text message sent to the Associated Press, the news agency reported. The message from purported Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the bomber was a Kabul resident, whose name was given as Azizullah.

Condemned attack

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack in a news conference Saturday, calling it “an act of extreme cowardice” that was “against humanity, against Islam.”

The 6:45 a.m. blast in central Kabul could be heard for miles in a city that was just waking up.

“We were sleeping, and we awoke to a huge explosion,” said Fayeed, 41, who lives in a third-floor apartment directly in front of the blast site. The boom smashed his windows and sent glass flying through his home, slightly injuring his wife and 6-month-old daughter.

Fayeed, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said he raced downstairs and found the bus littered with the bodies of dead soldiers and three women. Three men were seriously wounded, he said, including one who had lost both legs. A sidewalk cigarette vendor who operated a stall across the street was also killed, he said.

“It’s the holy month of Ramadan, and we lost our people,” he said. “It shows the weakness of the government. They can’t bring security to the people, but the people can’t bring security themselves.”

Wahiddullah Araye, 50, was walking his two children to school when the blast occurred.

“Everybody ran toward the bus to help people; there were a lot of dead and injured inside,” he said. “A person who does a suicide bombing is not human. The people who were killed are our countrymen, and I feel very sorry for them.”

The attack took place in front of a large movie theater, at a spot where Afghan soldiers gather every morning to be picked up by a bus that takes them to their jobs, an army spokesman, Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, said in a telephone interview. He said the bomber, wearing an Afghan army uniform, apparently detonated an explosive belt almost immediately after boarding the bus.