Car Bomb Explodes Near Kabul Airport
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KABUL, Afghanistan – A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up near the gates of the Afghan capital’s airport today, killing one Afghan soldier and wounding six other people, officials and witnesses said.
The blast, apparently aimed at a convoy of cars carrying foreigners, missed its intended target and tore into a group of soldiers waiting at a checkpoint outside the military wing of Kabul International airport, witnesses said.
The soldiers were scheduled to fly to Italy for training at a NATO base, said a soldier who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a defense ministry spokesman, said at least one Afghan soldier was killed and two others were wounded in the attack, the latest in a wave of insurgent-led violence in the country.
Other officials at the site of the blast said one soldier was killed and at least six others – four soldiers and two civilians – were wounded.
“A car drove fast and blew up next to crowd a people, including Afghan National Army soldiers,” said Mansur, a witness who only gave a single name. “A lot of people were left laying on the ground.”
Ambulances ferried those injured, while NATO and Afghan troops secured the site of the blast. The debris from the car destroyed in the blast was scattered around a wide area, next to the heavily protected entrance of the airport’s military wing.
An Afghan noncommissioned officer said the bomber tried to ram a convoy of cars carrying foreigners. Instead, most hit were members of the Afghan National Army, on their way for training in Italy, he said.
“All the shrapnel came toward us,” said the officer, who also declined to give his name.
Another soldier walked away from the scene holding a pair of bloodied boots and two green berets worn by Afghan National Army members.
Taliban militants are leading an increasingly bloody campaign against Afghan and Western troops in the country. Almost 4,000 people – most of them insurgents – have been killed this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.
Most of the violence has been in the south and the east where the Taliban are historically strongest, but there has also been a series of suicide attacks against foreign and Afghan security forces in the capital.
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Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
