E-Paper
Blasts in Kabul bus wounds 45
Blasts hit two buses taking Afghan Govt workers to their ministries in Kabul killing one person and wounding 45.
Blasts hit two buses taking Afghan government workers to their ministries in Kabul on Wednesday killing one person and wounding 45, while about 35 Taliban and a British soldier were killed in clashes in the south.
Violence by Taliban rebels has surged in Afghanistan this year to its worst level since the militants were ousted in 2001 but most of the bloodshed has been in the south and east.
Attacks in Kabul are rare but Wednesday was the second straight day of bomb blasts in the city.
An Afghan army bus was attacked as it was travelling to the Ministry of Defence during the morning rush hour.
"A remote-control mine in a trash bin beside the road exploded and 39 ANA personnel were wounded," the ministry said in a statement, referring to the Afghan National Army.
The wounded were not seriously hurt. The bus veered off the road into a cooking-gas shop, sparking a fire and more blasts as cylinders exploded. Two passers-by were injured.
About the same time, a bomb in an abandoned vendor's cart hit a bus carrying Ministry of Commerce workers in the north of the city. One person was killed and four wounded.
The Taliban claimed responsibility.
The insurgents have mounted scores of bomb attacks, ambushes and raids this year. The intensity of the violence has taken the government and its Western backers by surprise.
The government says the Taliban are trying to unnerve NATO as it embarks on what looks set to be its toughest mission when it takes over from U.S.-led forces in the south late this month.
The U.S. military said about 35 militants were killed in a Tuesday night attack on a Taliban compound in the southern province of Helmand that included air strikes.
"Several of the extremists killed were Taliban leaders who planned and conducted multiple attacks," the US-led force said. No US-led troops or non-combatants were hurt, it said.
Helmand is one of Afghanistan's most violent provinces.
A British soldier was killed while on patrol in the province's Sangin district on Wednesday, the sixth British soldier to die in the area since June 11.
"They were on patrol and attacked by suspected Taliban insurgents during which one was shot and killed," British military spokesman Captain Drew Gibson.
There were Taliban casualties but Gibson said he did not know how many.
Condemnation, Fear
The United States had been hoping to trim its troop numbers this year as a NATO peacekeeping force took over in the south. It now has 23,000 troops in Afghanistan, the most since its involvement began in 2001.
President Hamid Karzai, who is on a visit to Japan, and the United Nations condemned the Kabul blasts.
Traffic was thin on the city's usually clogged streets later on Wednesday.
"It's scary. I'm not sending my kids to school, who knows what's going to happen," said Mohammad Shafiq, who lives near the site of one of the blasts.
On Tuesday, a small bomb hit a Ministry of Interior bus wounding a policeman. A bomb in a vending cart blew up outside the Justice Ministry, wounding more than six people.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Mohammad Hanif, said by telephone the attacks had shown the Taliban could strike anywhere. He vowed more.
More than 1,200 people, most of them militants, have been killed in Afghanistan since January. More than 60 foreign troops have been killed.
