REGIONAL TENSIONS in south Asia were ratcheted up another notch yesterday after a massive car bomb in Kabul apparently aimed at Indians working in the Afghan capital.
Reports last night said at least nine Indians, including two military surgeons working at a local eye clinic and several consular officials, were among 17 killed in a Taliban attack in central Kabul at 6.30am yesterday.
An Italian diplomat and a French filmmaker who were in the city to conduct workshops with young locals were also reported dead, as well as three Afghan policemen. More than 30 people, including many Afghan civilians, were left injured.
The attack demonstrated once again the ability of insurgents to strike even in the centre of Kabul just a few hundred metres from major ministries.
Abdul Rahman Rahman, the commander of Kabul’s police, told reporters the Italian, named as Pietro Antonio Colazzo, was killed by gunfire while talking to police on the phone.
“He was in a room right behind the attackers and he could see where they were . . . [They] realised that he was passing information to police,” Mr Rahman said. Afghan security forces took four hours to overcome the attackers.
India reacted angrily to the attack. Officials in New Delhi are convinced a series of previous such strikes – the Indian embassy was targeted in both 2008 and in 2009 – were the work of militants sponsored by Pakistan. Islamabad has always denied any connections to militants operating in Afghanistan.
Analysts said this latest strike was likely to set back hopes in Washington and Europe that relations between India and Pakistan, which have fought three major wars, might improve in the foreseeable future. Talks on Thursday in New Delhi served merely to underline the current mutual distrust.
The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, condemned the attack as a “senseless act of violence and barbarism”, saying the Indians killed were on a “mission of goodwill and friendship”.
SM Krishna, India’s external affairs minister, described the attack as “the handiwork of those who are desperate to undermine the friendship between India and Afghanistan”. The Taliban has long seen India as an enemy, partly as a result of New Delhi’s historic ties to the factions within Afghanistan that fought the radical Islamic movement during the 1990s; since then India has been among the strongest supporters of western involvement there.
India is one of Afghanistan’s biggest donors, having pledged $1.3 billion (€0.95 billion) for reconstruction projects. In Pakistan there are fears that New Delhi’s growing influence in Kabul and relative popularity among ordinary Afghans could be a strategic threat.