AMIR SHAH
AP
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan - A bomber blew himself up amid a crowd of
workers outside a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on
Tuesday, killing as many as 10 and wounding more than a dozen
others in the deadliest suicide attack in four months, officials
said.
The attacker triggered explosives strapped to his chest as he
stood among the workers who were lined up outside the base in
the city of Khost, said Jamal Arsalah, the governor of Khost province.
Arsalah, who visited the scene shortly after the explosion, said
10 men were killed and 14 others injured. However, officials with
the NATO-led force that includes the U.S. base said eight Afghans,
including two policemen, were killed and five others wounded.
It was not clear why the tallies differed.
Maj. Matt Hackathorn, a U.S. military spokesman, said there was
no immediate word of any U.S. military casualties.
The governor said the Afghan casualties were among hundreds of
workers waiting to enter the base, known as Camp Salerno, through
its main gate.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said the
attacker detonated an explosives-filled vest when he reached the
point where people entering the base are searched.
An Associated Press Television News cameraman saw the bodies
of five men, drenched in blood, in the city's military hospital.
Relatives of the dead and injured mobbed the hospital seeking
news of their loved ones.
Suicide attacks have become much more frequent as Taliban militants
have intensified their insurgency against Afghan government and
foreign troops backing them. According to U.S. military figures,
there were 139 suicide attacks during 2006, up from 27 in 2005.
Tuesday's attack was the deadliest since Sept. 30, when a suicide
bomber killed 12 people outside the gates of the Interior Ministry
in Kabul.
Khost, south of the capital, is a former al-Qaida stronghold
on the mountainous Pakistani border that has been a focus of militant
activity. Camp Salerno is the U.S. military's main base in the
east and includes an airfield.
Afghan and Western officials say that insurgents use the tribal
areas of neighboring Pakistan as sanctuaries from where they organize
and launch operations in Afghanistan.
However, Pakistan argues that only remnants of Taliban and al-Qaida
remain on its side of the border and complain that it gets too
little recognition for deploying thousands of troops in the border
region. On Monday, a suicide car bomber killed four Pakistani
soldiers in North Waziristan, across the frontier from Khost.
Senior U.S. officials have warned that fighting in Afghanistan
is likely to surge again this spring, as warmer weather clears
snow from mountain passes and militants try to weaken the grip
of President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government.
Email
