Suicide Bomber Kills Scores In Afghanistan

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.