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Suicide bombing near US base in Afghanistan: officials

By Sharif Khoram / AFP

KABUL — A suicide bomber struck near a US military base in Kabul on Friday, wounding foreign soldiers and Afghan civilians less than a week before the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai, officials said.

Kabul has been hit by a rising number of suicide bombings claimed by the Taliban, whose insurgency against Western troops and the Afghan government is now at its deadliest since US-led troops overthrew their regime in 2001.

Friday's attack underscored the perils facing the more than 100,000 NATO and US troops in Afghanistan with US President Barack Obama weighing whether to deploy up to 40,000 more troops in an effort to stabilise the country.

"Three foreign soldiers have been injured. They are possibly American," said Abdul Ghasar Aayedzada, criminal police investigation chief for Kabul.

He said the attack occurred around 7:45 am (0315 GMT) when a suicide bomber in a car blew up alongside a coalition forces vehicle heading toward Camp Phoenix on the road between Kabul and the eastern town of Jalalabad.

Three civilians were also wounded, although their injuries were not serious, the police officer told reporters.

A witness, who gave his name only as Mohammed, said he was sitting in his truck drinking tea when a small convoy of foreign troops passed.

"I saw a grey Corolla and a man driving it with a white hat on. He blew himself up and there was a huge cloud of dust," the trucker said.

The powerful blast was heard across the capital, including by an AFP reporter more than five kilometres (three miles) away in central Kabul.

The attack struck about 400 metres from the camp's main gate. The explosives blew the bomber's car to pieces, spreading debris around the road and damaging several other vehicles, an AFP reporter said.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed that the blast was caused by a "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device".

"Reports indicate Afghan civilians, ISAF service members and civilian contractors were wounded in the blast as the vehicle exploded near an ISAF convoy and other civilian vehicles," an ISAF statement said.

No ISAF members were killed, it said.

Camp Phoenix, on the outskirts of Kabul, is run by US forces but other NATO member nations also maintain a presence there.

Afghan soldiers are trained at the base by international troops, who have put the training of Afghanistan's security forces at the heart of efforts to hand over responsibility for fighting the Taliban insurgency.

Camp Phoenix occasionally comes under attack, mostly from rocket and mortar fire, though without casualties.

The website of Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix says the base trains and mentors the Afghan army and police. It is led primarily by the US National Guard who, as of September, had more than 1,700 national guardsmen there.

Security experts in Kabul have warned that the Taliban could be planning attacks ahead of Karzai's inauguration, scheduled next Thursday.

More than 100,000 NATO and US-led troops are helping the government battle the insurgency now at its deadliest in the eight years since US-led forces toppled the Islamist regime and swept Karzai into power.

Huge fraud that marred the August 20 presidential election in Afghanistan highlighted the scale of government corruption and has led to enormous international pressure on Karzai's new administration to clean up.

Obama told US troops in Alaska that he will not risk their lives needlessly and promised a clear mission as he weighed his next steps in the Afghan war.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Obama wanted to show a strong US commitment to Afghanistan but also convey to Karzai's corruption-tainted government that the US military presence had a time limit.

In classified cables leaked to newspapers, US ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry reportedly warned against sending more troops to Afghanistan until Karzai gets a grip on the corruption and incompetence in his administration.

The Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal, in contrast, wants more than 40,000 additional US troops over the next year. He has warned that without them the mission is likely to fail.