KABUL, 29 January 2004 — A British soldier was killed and three were wounded yesterday when a suicide bomber drove a taxi carrying explosives up to their vehicle in Kabul, the second attack on peacekeepers in the Afghan capital in as many days.
A member of the ousted Taleban militia claimed responsibility for the blast, saying the bomber was an Algerian-born British national. The attack on peacekeepers of the NATO-led force came a day after a Canadian soldier and an Afghan civilian were killed in a similar suicide bombing in the city. “We heard a powerful explosion. When we got out we saw a destroyed British vehicle... along with a taxi,” said police officer Mirza Mohammad.
“We carried one dead British soldier along with three other wounded British soldiers and one of their translators.” Nimatullah Jalili, an Interior Ministry official, said that one Afghan civilian also died in the attack and a civilian was wounded. A taxi thought to have been carrying the bomb was completely destroyed and pieces of human flesh, believed to be that of the suicide bomber driving the vehicle, could be seen, Mohammad said.
The explosion occurred at around 11 a.m. on the road leading east out of Kabul to Jalalabad, near where four German peacekeepers were killed and dozens injured in June by a suicide bomber driving a taxi.
A statement issued by the 5,700-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul confirmed the soldier’s death, but it did not have reports of any civilian casualties.
Abdul Latif Hakimi, an official of the Taleban, claimed responsibility for the attack.
“It’s just the beginning. More such attacks will take place. Hundreds of our men are ready to carry out such attacks,” he told Reuters from an undisclosed location.
Hakimi identified the bomber as Saad, an Algerian-born British national in his twenties. He said Saad had recently been based in Uzbekistan. The Taleban also said it was behind Tuesday’s attack when a bomber threw himself in front of a vehicle being driven by Canadian peacekeepers.
One Canadian soldier and an Afghan civilian died, and three Canadian troops and eight Afghan civilians were wounded. The militia has declared a “jihad”, or holy war against foreign troops in Afghanistan and the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Last month it claimed responsibility for another suicide attack that killed five Afghan security officials in Kabul, saying at the time it would shift the focus of its campaign to cities, where its militants were preparing suicide missions. Until then, security experts had tended to link suicide bomb attacks in Afghanistan to Al-Qaeda, once sheltered by the Taleban.
The Taleban, most active in the south and east, has traditionally been blamed for less sophisticated road block killings, executions or drive-by shootings and grenade attacks.
Aid work has been suspended across much of Afghanistan and doubts are growing over the feasibility of holding elections planned for June. Around 500 people, including many militants, have been killed in Afghanistan in the last six months, the bloodiest period since the Taleban’s ouster by US-led forces in late 2001.
