U.S. Convoy Attacked In Kabul, 4 Dead

A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of American contract workers and military personnel in the Afghan capital on Saturday, killing at least four civilians, officials said. A U.S. soldier opened fire afterward, killing one civilian and sparking an angry protest.

Saturday's blast killed the bomber, wrecked a taxi and other nearby vehicles, and shattered windows of roadside homes and shops.

Maj. Sheldon Smith, a U.S. spokesman for troops training Afghan police and army soldiers, said American contract workers and military personnel were in the convoy. A spokesman at the U.S. base at Bagram said workers with DynCorp, who are helping train Afghan police, were attacked.

Smith said the coalition "never intentionally endangers the lives of innocent Afghan civilians" but that the Taliban routinely and intentionally uses explosive devices in heavily populated areas.

Taliban spokesmen have warned Afghan civilians to avoid military convoys, but suicide bombings commonly kill or wound far more civilians than military targets — a fact NATO repeatedly points out.

The Amerian soldier in a Humvee "mistakenly" opened fire on the crowd after the suicide attack, killing one civilian and wounding three, said Zalmai Khan, deputy Kabul police chief.

Afterward, a crowd of 50 to 100 people gathered, with some chanting "Death to America" and jabbing their arms at police.

One man in the crowd, Atta Mohammad, said the civilian killed by the U.S. soldier was just trying to buy credit for his cell phone. "Nobody among us was doing anything wrong," Mohammad said.

"They are against us, they are against Afghans," said another, Abdul Rahim.

Zabiullah Mujahid, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the militant group was behind the blast.

The explosion came amid a wave of violence in Afghanistan, particularly the volatile south, including a suicide blast on Friday that targeted a NATO convoy at Tirin Kot in Uruzgan province, killing 10 people including five children and a Dutch soldier.

Kabul has been spared the worst of this year's bloodshed that has claimed 2,300 lives so far, mostly insurgents, according to an AP count based on figures from U.S., NATO, U.N. and Afghan officials.

In Saturday's attack, witnesses gave a higher casualty count than police, saying seven or eight people had died.

"We were busy with our work making window frames. I heard a very strong sound, and when I turned around I saw a big fire in the street," said Mohammed Noor, 22, who owns a nearby carpentry shop. He said the blast fired bits of metal shorn from the attacker's car into his shop front.

Noor said he helped four seriously wounded people into cars to ferry them to hospital. He said at least seven people were killed and 10 were wounded.

Elsewhere, a soldier in the U.S.-led coalition was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle Saturday in Uruzgan province, the coalition said. The soldier's nationality was not released.

Meanwhile, the Afghan Ministry of Defense said three soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Helmand province on Friday. It also said three "terrorists" — an Arab, a Chechen and a Pakistani — were killed during a U.S.-Afghan raid in Paktika province on Friday.

This spring supporters of the Taliban regime ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 have increased bombings and suicide attacks, but NATO and U.S. forces claim operations in the south and east are seeing some success against the rebels.