100 Killed In 3 Days In Afghanistan

Afghan Officials Say Casualties Include Civilians, Police, Militants; 7 Kids Killed By U.S. Air Strike

(CBS/AP) 
The explosion was the fifth suicide attack in Afghanistan in three days, part of a sharp spike in violence around the country.

Condemning the Kabul attack, Karzai said the "enemies of Afghanistan" were trying to stop the development of Afghan security forces, a key component in the U.S.-NATO strategy of handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan government one day, allowing Western forces to leave.

A self-described Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said a Taliban suicide bomber named Mullah Asim Abdul Rahman caused the blast. Ahmadi called an Associated Press reporter from an undisclosed location. His claim could not be verified.

At least one person survived the morning bus blast. Nasir Ahmad, 22, (seen at left) a janitor at the police training academy, was sitting in the back of the bus when the bomb exploded. Speaking from a hospital bed where he was recovering from wounds to his face and hands, he said: "There were between 30 to 40 police instructors in the bus."

It was the only full sentence he managed to utter before stopping from exhaustion.

Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbal said initial indications were that a suicide bomber boarded the bus as it stopped to pick up police instructors at an open-air bus station in central Kabul. Such a suicide attack would represent a sizable jump in lethality compared to more typical Taliban suicide bombings, which often kill far fewer people.

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said it was too early to tell if the attack was a sign of more lethal bombings to come, or heavier involvement by al Qaeda. NATO commanders have long predicted a rise in suicide attacks this year.

Afghan government officials, police and army soldiers are commonly targeted by insurgents trying to bring down Karzai's U.S.-backed government, and buses carrying Afghan police and army soldiers are common targets.

In May, a remote-control bomb hit an Afghan army bus in Kabul, killing the driver and wounding 29 people. In October, a bomb on a bicycle exploded as a police bus went by in Kabul, wounding 11. Last July, a remote-controlled bomb blew up near an Afghan army bus in downtown Kabul, wounding 39 people on board.

Insurgency-related violence has killed more than 2,400 people in Afghanistan this year, mostly insurgents, according to an AP count based on figures from U.S., NATO, U.N. and Afghan officials.