One dead, several injured in Kabul suicide attack

A suicide attacker detonated grenades on a commercial street in central Kabul today, killing himself and injuring seven other people, including three foreign peacekeepers, officials said.

General Baba Jan, Kabul police chief, said the man had around six grenades strapped to his body, which he exploded on Chicken Street in the Afghan capital.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack which comes two weeks after landmark presidential elections. The Taliban militia had threatened to disrupt the vote, but it passed off largely peacefully.

A witness, shopkeeper Abdul Wahid, said one Western woman was among those hurt. He said none appeared to be seriously injured.

The mutilated corpse of the attacker lay on the pavement. The ground and a nearby carpet shop were spattered with blood. Police retrieved a tattered sleeve still containing the man’s arm from across the road.

The body lay next to a sports utility vehicle bearing the insignia of the Nato security force. The engine of the vehicle was still running, but its rear window was blown out and its front tyres were flat.

A spokesman for the Nato-led peacekeeping force that patrols the city, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Poulain, said three explosions rocked the street at around 3.30pm, and that seven people were injured, including three peacekeepers and four civilians.

The three soldiers were taken to a German-run field hospital. Two of them were slightly injured, and one “more seriously”, he said.

He did not give their nationalities, but peacekeepers at the scene said some of the injured were Norwegians.

General Jan gave a different account. He said the injured included four Afghan civilians and two peacekeepers.

Police and peacekeepers sealed off the street, the heart of Kabul’s bustling downtown area, which is crammed with convenience stores and souvenir shops popular with foreign aid workers and soldiers.

Wahid, who runs a shop next door to where the attack happened, said he heard three explosions, rushed outside and saw five injured people: an injured Western woman, two foreign soldiers and two Afghan children – a young girl who often begged there, and the 13-year old son of a shopkeeper.

“I saw the beggar girl running down the street, her hands covered in blood,” he told The Associated Press.

The UN and the US Embassy have urged foreigners in the capital to be on their guard in the election period, particularly since a car bomb at the office of a US security contractor killed around 10 people, including three Americans, on August 29.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, but security officials here have cast doubt on the willingness of Afghan militants to carry out suicide missions, suggesting al Qaida may have been involved.

Two Nato soldiers – one British, one Canadian- died in back-to-back suicide bombings in Kabul in January. No conclusions from the investigations into those attacks have been made public.