KABUL — A Toyota Corolla packed with explosives rammed a pair of US military vehicles in Kabul on Thursday, setting off a blast that killed at least 16 people, including six US military advisers and service members, and shook the relative calm that has prevailed for months in the capital, Afghan officials said.
The explosion rattled windows across Kabul. It left bodies strewn along the street and one of the US vehicles — an armored Chevrolet Suburban that weighed nearly 5 tons — in ruins more than 30 feet from the blast site.
Hezb-i-Islami, a relatively small insurgent faction that often competes with the Taliban for influence, claimed responsibility for the attack, which also wounded more than three dozen Afghans. Haroon Zarghon, the group’s spokesman, reached by telephone in Pakistan, said the bombing was carried out by a 24-year-old man from south of Kabul.
The press knows his number, huh?
Related: CIA's Ace-in-the-Hole in Afghanistan
And he's the "peaceful" one?
Also see:
Operation Mockingbird
Why Am I No Longer Reading the Newspaper?
I guess they would know where to reach him.
More attacks against Americans will come soon, Zarghon added, saying that Hezb-i-Islami was dismayed by the current talks between Afghanistan and the United States about a long-term security deal under which thousands of US soldiers could be based in Afghanistan for years.
“When Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan realized that American invaders have the devil intention of staying in Afghanistan, we decided to step up our attack on Americans in Afghanistan,” he said.
Which means we will have to LEAVE EVEN MORE TROOPS, huh? And CUI BONO?
Whether Hezb-i-Islami — or the Taliban, for that matter — could regularly strike Americans in Kabul remains to be seen. Thursday’s bombing was the first significant attack in months on a Western target in Kabul, despite repeated efforts by insurgents.
According to Afghan and US officials, the insurgents have found their efforts stymied by the myriad layers of security that protect Kabul, from street-level police officers staffing checkpoints to Afghan and foreign special operations soldiers raiding homes and businesses nearly every night.
It's called freedom and liberation.
The aftermath of Thursday’s bombing, though, provided a gory reminder that war still grips much of Afghanistan and that only so much can be done to keep it from spilling into Kabul, especially when the insurgents easily blend into the population....
Insurgents appear to have stepped up their targeting of coalition forces in recent days. Three Georgian soldiers were killed this week when a car bomber struck their outpost in Helmand Province, and three Americans were killed the next day by a hidden roadside bomb in Kandahar Province.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for both of those attacks.
Did the AmeriKan media give them a call, too?
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NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Dalton man killed in blast in Afghanistan
He just got married and was thrilled to be going, huh?
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Dalton man killed in blast in Afghanistan
He just got married and was thrilled to be going, huh?
