Oct 8, 2009 9:32 am US/Eastern
Suicide Blast Rocks Kabul; Taliban Claim Attack
Indian Embassy Targeted; 12 Killed, Dozens Injured
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KABUL (CBS News) ―
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Rescue workers recover a body at the scene of a suicide bombing on Oct. 8, 2009 in Kabul, Afghanistan.
David Goldman/Getty Images
A powerful car bomb exploded in the busy center of Afghanistan's capital early Thursday, killing at least 12 people, destroying vehicles and blowing off the walls of shops, officials told CBS News.
CBS News' Fazul Rahim reports that at least 83 people were injured in the attack, and the death toll includes 1 Afghan national police officer, according to the Interior Ministry. Eight police officers were among the injured. The rest of the casualties were believed to be civilians.
Gen. Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, head of criminal investigations for the Afghan National Police, told Rahim the death toll could rise as some of the wounded were in critical condition.
CBS News' Khaled Wassef reports that the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted online Thursday.
"The martyrdom attack was carried out by Mujahid Khaled, from Paghman district, at 8:40 a.m. at the gate of the Indian Embassy in the heart of Kabul," read the statement.
"A Toyota truck was used in the bombing, causing major damage to the Embassy's building, which was the attack's initial target," said the Taliban.
The bomb exploded on a shop-lined road between the Indian Embassy and the Interior Ministry, said Sayed Kabir Amiri, the head of all hospitals in the capital.
Rahim reports that the attack occurred very near to the scene of a huge explosion in June 2008 which killed more than 60 people.
Thursday's blast hit shortly after 8:30 a.m., just as residents were arriving to work. It shattered glass and rattled buildings more than a mile away. A huge brown plume of smoke was visible in the air as ambulances raced to the scene carrying away the wounded.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the explosion was a suicide car bomb. He did not give other details. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
President Hamid Karzai's office condemned the attack and said at least seven people were killed and most of the wounded were civilians.
The Afghan capital has been hit numerous times in recent months by suicide bombers and roadside bombs, several times since the run-up to the country's Aug. 20 election. The attacks usually target international military forces or government installations, but Afghan businesses and civilians are also often killed or injured.
In the most recent attack in mid-September, a suicide car bomber rammed into an Italian military convoy on a road leading to the airport. That blast killed six Italian soldiers and 10 Afghan civilians.
AP Television News footage from Kabul on Thursday showed local residents and soldiers pulling a charred, severed leg out of a destroyed vehicle. Others carried an apparently lifeless body on a stretcher to an ambulance.
On another stretcher, a man lay face down, one arm hanging downward, his back left leg covered in blood.
One 21-year-old man named Najibullah said he had just opened his shop when the explosion went off, knocking him unconscious.
When he awoke, he said, he couldn't see anything.
"Dust was everywhere. People were shouting," said Najibullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name. "You couldn't see their faces because there was so much dust."
His white clothes were covered in blood after helping load four injured onto ambulances.
The center of the blast was a road between the Interior Ministry and the Indian embassy, which was targeted by a devastating explosion more than a year ago that killed dozens of civilians. The road in front of the embassy has been barricaded since the July 2008 attack. The Afghan Interior Ministry is just across from Indian Embassy.
Two sport utility vehicles nearby were badly damaged, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. One of them had U.N. markings on its side.
U.N. spokesman Dan McNorton confirmed two of the world body's vehicles were near the blast and one was damaged. Both vehicles had only a driver inside, and neither was wounded. The United Nations typically uses armored vehicles in Kabul that are designed to withstand such attacks.
The blast could be heard miles away. Windows in dozens of surrounding shops at the scene of the blast were shattered, and walls of buildings were badly damaged in the blast, though none of the multistory buildings along the commercial thoroughfare had collapsed.
One man who was injured in the blast said the force of the explosion threw him into the air. Mohammad Arif said he was leaving the Indian Embassy when the blast tossed him against a concrete barrier. The left side of his head was bleeding as he spoke.
U.S. and NATO spokespeople said they did not yet have any information on the explosion.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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