Kabul suicide blast kills 8 ahead of key vote

A SUICIDE car bomber killed at least eight people in the Afghan capital yesterday and a Taliban rocket hit the presidential palace grounds as violence surged across the country ahead of tomorrow’s cliffhanger election.

Security officials said 55 were wounded by the suicide bomber, who rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into the convoy on the notorious Jalalabad road.

A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan said foreign troops were among the dead and wounded, without elaborating. The UN mission in Kabul said two of its Afghan staff members were also among the dead.

With incumbent Hamid Karzai fighting to win a fresh mandate without a second round run-off, tomorrow’s election is also a test of US President Barack Obama’s strategy of escalating the eight-year conflict in an effort to reverse recent Taliban gains.

Polls show Karzai likely to win the vote, but suggest he may fall just short of the outright majority needed to avoid a second round in six weeks. Taliban militants have vowed to disrupt the poll with violence.

Thick black smoke poured from the scene of yesterday’s suicide bombing and police held back onlookers as the wounded were ferried away in ambulances and pickup trucks.

“I saw wounded people and dead people everywhere,” said a shopkeeper named Sawad. “I helped some people to ambulances, their clothes were covered in blood stains.”

Karzai said such attacks would not deter Afghans, who would vote “despite the efforts of the enemies”.

Scattered violence shook the rest of the country, mostly linked to the election. In Uruzgan province in the south, a suicide bomber on foot killed three Afghan soldiers and two civilians at a checkpoint.

Rockets also struck Jalalabad to the east, wounding 10 civilians in a house.

A provincial council candidate was shot dead in northern Jowzjan province, and in Badakhshan in the remote north-east three election workers transporting poll material were killed when their car hit a bomb.

A school intended for use as a polling station was bombed in Ghazni province causing casualties, and two schools that would be used as polling stations were hit by rocket-propelled grenades in Logar province south of the capital.

Two US service members were killed by a roadside bomb in the east, the US military said.