Taleban suicide van attack on armoured Nato bus kills 17

A TALEBAN suicide bomber rammed a van into an armoured Nato bus yesterday in Kabul, killing 13 American troops and four Afghans.

It is the deadliest attack on alliance forces in more than two months.

The explosion, which occurred as the convoy was passing the American University, sparked a fireball and littered the street with shrapnel. Heavy black smoke poured from burning wreckage at the site.

The armoured personnel carrier, known as a Rhino, was sandwiched between a convoy of mine-resistant military vehicles travelling on a four-lane motorway frequently used by Nato forces in a southwestern section of the capital.

Nato said 13 service members were killed, and a US official later confirmed they were all Americans.

The Afghan ministry of interior said three Afghan civilians and one policeman also died in the attack. Eight other Afghans, including two children and four other civilians, were wounded, said Kabir Amiri, head of Kabul hospitals.

The Taleban claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack, as well as for another suicide bombing outside a government intelligence office in the northwest province of Kunar.

The attack occurred near the entrance of the American University and the nearby landmark Darulaman Palace, the bombed-out seat of former Afghan kings.

Nato and Afghan forces sealed off the area as fire trucks and ambulances rushed in. One witness at the scene saw two Nato helicopters landing to airlift casualties, while alliance troops using loudspeakers ordered bystanders to evacuate the area.

It was the deadliest single attack against the US-led alliance since the Taleban shot down a Nato helicopter on 6 August in an eastern Afghan province, killing 30 US troops, mostly elite Navy Seals, and eight Afghans.

In other attacks, a man wearing an Afghan military uniform opened fire on a joint Nato-Afghan base, killing three Nato service members in Uruzgan province, an area in the south that is traditionally viewed as the Taleban’s stronghold.

Afghan defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said officials were investigating whether the gunman, who was killed in the incident, was a member of the Afghan army or a militant wearing an army uniform. Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the start of the war ten years ago, according to the United Nations, despite the presence of more than 130,000 foreign troops.

The International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said there had recently been a fall in attacks by insurgents but this excluded attacks that killed only civilians and those on Afghan security forces operating without international troops.

On Thursday, insurgents armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked two bases used by foreign troops in southern Afghanistan. An Afghan interpreter working for Isaf was killed in that incident.