Canadian soldier killed in suicide attack

One Canadian soldier was killed and three were wounded today in an apparent suicide bombing in the Afghan capital of Kabul, the NATO-led security force said.

“Initial indicators are that one Canadian soldier has been killed and three Canadian soldiers have been injured,” a NATO spokesman said.

“There is at least one dead civilian at the scene. It may have been a suicide bomber that caused the explosion,” he added.

Nine civilians were also hurt and are being treated at a hospital, said General Haroon Asifi, a commander in the Afghan Interior Ministry.

Ali Jan Askaryar, head of police in the western district of Kabul where the blast happened, said the Canadians were part of a three-vehicle patrol when they were attacked.

“There was a bump in the road, and when they slowed down to pass over it a terrorist jumped on one of the vehicles and blew himself up,” Askaryar said.

A witness at the scene, Hussein Agha, said body parts were strewn on the road.

“There were three vehicles, two of them had passed by and he targeted the last one,” Agha said of the bomber.

International troops and local police cordoned off the scene of the attack, about 1.25 miles from the main Canadian base in Kabul.

From nearby, an open-backed military jeep that appeared badly burnt with its windows blown out was visible standing in a patch of blackened road, a white sheet lying next to it. A civilian car also appeared to have been badly burnt in the blast.

Although there have been persistent, almost daily attacks in Afghanistan by remnants of the hard-line Taliban and al-Qaida, suicide attacks are not a commonly used tactic by insurgent forces. The continuing violence in the country - more than two years after the Taliban were removed from power by a US-led force – has killed more than 60 people in the past three weeks.