KABUL – A Taliban suicide bomber attacked a Nato-led military convoy during rush hour in the Afghan capital yesterday, killing 12 Afghan civilians and six foreign soldiers, including five Americans, officials said.
A Taliban spokesman, claiming responsibility, said a van packed with 750kg of explosives had been used.
The attack was the deadliest strike against foreign troops in the heavily guarded capital since September 2009, when six Italian soldiers were killed by a car bomb.
It comes after the Taliban announced a spring offensive against the Afghan government, foreign forces and diplomats in Afghanistan in response to Nato plans for an offensive on the group’s southern stronghold of Kandahar.
The interior ministry said at least 12 Afghan civilians had been killed and 47 wounded. Most of the casualties were people waiting for a bus on the busy road near an army base, a government ministry and the parliament.
In a separate bomb attack, another member of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) was killed in southern Afghanistan, Isaf said in statement.
Tens of thousands of mostly US and British troops are in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, both Taliban strongholds, trying to turn the tide of a growing insurgency.
In Ghazni province in the southeast, the Taliban beheaded three Afghan boys accused of being spies, a police official said.
In neighbouring Paktia province, close to the Pakistan border, Afghan police shot dead a would-be suicide bomber who tried to attack a government building, police said.
The shooting detonated the explosives, killing one policeman and wounding another.
President Hamid Karzai was holding a news conference at the time of the Kabul blast. He condemned the attacks, which came weeks before he is to host a grand assembly of Afghans to present the results of his negotiations with the Taliban and to seek advice from delegates on peace moves.
He also said the West was starting to realise the war in Afghanistan could not be won militarily and that the peace process must involve reconciling with the Taliban. – (Reuters)