Suicide Bomber Kills Scores In Afghanistan

At Least 40 Dead, Many Wounded During Kabul Rush Hour By Car Bomber In Front Of Indian Embassy

(CBS/AP)  A suicide car bomb exploded outside the Indian Embassy in central Kabul on Monday, killing some 40 people in the deadliest attack in Afghanistan's capital this year, officials said.

The massive bomb detonated at the embassy entrance near where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas. The blast knocked down a front wall and damaged two embassy vehicles entering the compound.

The embassy had beefed up security in recent days by installing large, dirt-filled blast walls often used by military forces. But several shops across the street were damaged or destroyed, and smoldering ruins and wounded Afghans 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 wounded in the blast.

Najib Nikzad, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said the blast killed 40 people. Earlier, Abdullah Fahim, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said the explosion killed at least 28 people and wounded 141. The Interior Ministry said six police officers were killed, as were three embassy guards.

The explosion, on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, was the deadliest attack in Kabul this year since a suicide bomber attacked an army bus last September, killing 30 people.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and said it was carried out by militants trying to rupture the friendship between Afghanistan and India.

India's ambassador to Afghanistan, Jayant Prasad, told CBS News' Fazul Rahim that three Indian nationals were killed and three more injured in the blast. In New Delhi, India's foreign minister said the country's military attache and a diplomat were among four Indians who died in the attack.

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Defense Attache Brigadier R. Mehta, diplomat V. Venkat Rao and two security guards were among the 40 people who died.

He says India will be sending a high-level delegation to Kabul in the coming days.

Nikzad told CBS News the bomber blew up his car as a convoy carrying the Indian officials attempted to enter the embassy compound.

A senior Afghan official told CBS News' Farhan Bokhari last week that there were confirmed reports that a "neighbor country" wanted to attack Indian interests inside Afghanistan - describing such sites as "high value and prime targets of terrorists."

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Afghan authorities give "special consideration" for the security of Indian nationals in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Interior Ministry issued a statement Monday implicating an unspecified intelligence agency in the attack. "The Interior Ministry believes this attack was carried out in coordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region," the statement 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.

The White House quickly condemned Monday's attack, reports CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.

"Extremists continue to show their disregard for all human life and their willingness to kill fellow Muslims as well as others. The United States stands with the people of Afghanistan and India, as we face this common enemy," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

In Delhi, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said the attack would not deter the mission from "fulfilling our commitments to the government and people of Afghanistan."

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's 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.

The embassy attack was the sixth suicide bombing in Kabul this year. Insurgent violence has killed more than 2,200 people - mostly militants - in Afghanistan in 2008, according to an Associated Press count of official figures.

Afghan political analyst and former diplomat Ahmad Sasid told CBS News' Sami Yousafzai on Monday that the Taliban has been targeting high-profile people and places for the last eight months, with success, in an effort to undermine the authority of President Karzai and his Western backers.

Sasid pointed specifically to recent attacks on the Serena hotel in Kabul in January, a national parade attended by Karzai in April, and the dramatic Kandahar jailbreak in June.

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.

[tootall10142]

What in the fluk are you i assume educated and post military people rambling about here ? get a life or a chat room/slush room.

[ajmarine111]

They probably know more than I do.

Posted by erasmus81 at 05:17 AM : Jul 08, 2008


For some reason, I doubt that.


Are you working on an e-mail for me?

[erasmus81]

"...and we don''''t want to warp their little minds now do we?" Posted by AJMarine111 at 05:13 AM : Jul 08, 2008

Ahh, I think most of those "little minds" are already warped. They probably know more than I do.

[ajmarine111]

There are a number of things you can help me with, but we don''''t want to get into those here.:)


Posted by erasmus81 at 05:09 AM : Jul 08, 2008


No we don''t;.........it''s getting to be morning here and young kids will start showing up before long and we don''t want to warp their little minds now do we?

[ajmarine111]

The other day I was thinking that most men in the U.S. have been in the military and have fought in a war. Here in Canada, I don''''t know anyone that has been in the military.


Posted by erasmus81 at 05:06 AM : Jul 08, 2008


As far as the US, that might have been at one time, but I don''t think so anymore.

Besides, if you listen to the rest of the world, we are nothing but war mongers anyway, so we would have many more military people than say a peaceful country like Canada.

[erasmus81]

"Anything else I can help you with, you just let me know." Posted by AJMarine111 at 05:06 AM : Jul 08, 2008

There are a number of things you can help me with, but we don''t want to get into those here.:)

[erasmus81]

The other day I was thinking that most men in the U.S. have been in the military and have fought in a war. Here in Canada, I don''t know anyone that has been in the military.

[ajmarine111]

Thank you, AJMarine:)


Posted by erasmus81 at 05:04 AM : Jul 08, 2008


Anything else I can help you with, you just let me know.

[erasmus81]

"That would be 1973.............sweet thing." Posted by AJMarine111 at 05:00 AM : Jul 08, 2008

Thank you, AJMarine:)

[ajmarine111]

"We have a volunter military, as you know." Posted by AJMarine111 at 03:26 AM : Jul 08, 2008

What year did the draft end? I asked someone before but they didn''''t answer me.


Posted by erasmus81 at 04:42 AM : Jul 08, 2008


That would be 1973.............sweet thing.

[erasmus81]

"We have a volunter military, as you know." Posted by AJMarine111 at 03:26 AM : Jul 08, 2008

What year did the draft end? I asked someone before but they didn''t answer me.

[ajmarine111]

And all of our traitors will be justly tried, and if found guilty, imprisoned for life.
ST

Posted by Humanavance at 04:08 AM : Jul 08, 2008



If they are found gulity of crimes, prison is where they need to be.

After 5 years of war, you think someone would make the case for it or else quit wasting their breath.

[ajmarine111]

It would not be voluntary the moment McCain became "President". He would, out of logistic reality, have to institute an emergency draft to satisfy the neocons thirst for blood and treasure, and invade Iran.

Sealing our fate.


Posted by Humanavance at 03:37 AM : Jul 08, 2008



I will grant you that this could be a possibility, but I find it unlikely.

Having said that, I do think the election will boil down to either people believing Iran is a threat that needs to be dealt with, or, we need to get out of Iraq and wait and see what happens.

Bush talked about the Axis of Evil, and as of now, Iran is the only one left on the list.

[ajmarine111]

I have a boy to be 15 next month.

I will not allow him to be crushed by the evil of Bush and his henchmen, or any party.

When they come for my child, they will find an impenetrable wall.


Posted by Humanavance at 03:13 AM : Jul 08, 2008



You are a passionate person Humanavance, but this statement is like the political spot being run about a woman and her little boy and how McCain can''t have him.

No one is going to come after him or your son to go fight a war. We have a volunter military, as you know.

[nssherlock1]

Can''t these suicide bombers just attack weddings and funerals like the U.S.?

[ajmarine111]

OK.

Te
ll that to the "wardens" in Bush''''s secret prisons, across our planet, as you''''re tortured. And attempt to write a lasting epitaph and hide it so that it may not be discovered by evil, only good, in case you are murdered.
ST

Posted by Humanavance at 02:24 AM : Jul 08, 2008



We are an "open'' society. If Bush and our government are war criminals, in time, hopefully someone will put them in jail. In the mean time, no one is doing anything about them and in the end, history will be the judge of who was right and who was wrong.

[ajmarine111]

and the American Constitution self destructed

No.

Underboard
. Way underboard.

When I and the American people go overboard you, and our treasonous government, will know it.
ST


Posted by Humanavance at 02:07 AM : Jul 08, 2008



I will have to disagree with you, I don''t think our Constitution has self destructed

[ajmarine111]

To them it looks like they simply attacked once and the American Constitution self destructed."

Posted by Humanavance at 01:48 AM : Jul 08, 2008



That''s going overboard alittle isn''t it?

[ajmarine111]

Mayor Karzai needs to round up a fresh pair of drawers, before any of that.


Posted by FeelFree4U at 12:38 AM : Jul 08, 2008



Morning FeelFree,

The mayor of Kabul probably doesn''t wear underwear.

[feelfree4u]

Re: "That is President Karzai''s urgent task."

Posted by AJMarine111


Mayor Karzai needs to round up a fresh pair of drawers, before any of that.