KABUL - A Taliban suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy in central Kabul Sunday, triggering a powerful explosion in an attack that comes two weeks after the resurgent militant group overran a key northern city.
The rush-hour bombing, which sent a plume of smoke into the sky, wounded at least three civilians including a child, as the Taliban ramp up attacks on government and foreign targets.
The intensity of the blast sent an armoured vehicle crashing into a sidewalk, its front end badly mangled, and left the area littered with charred pieces of twisted metal.
“The incident took place while a suicide bomber detonated an explosive-packed car in the Joy Shir area... of Kabul city,” the interior ministry said.
“The target of the attacker was the foreign forces convoy.”
Security forces cordoned off the area as ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the scene, but officials said the human toll of the blast was limited.
“The ministry of interior condemns in the strongest terms the suicide attack which resulted in the wounding of three civilians,” the ministry said.
The Kabul police said the wounded included a woman and a child.
A NATO spokesman in Kabul confirmed that their convoy came under attack but said the international coalition was still gathering further information.
The emboldened insurgents have stepped up attacks around Afghanistan since they launched their annual summer offensive in late April. The Taliban captured the northern city of Kunduz on September 28, their most spectacular victory in 14 years. The seizure of the provincial capital for three days was a stinging blow to Western-trained Afghan forces, who have largely been fighting on their own since the end of NATO’s combat mission in December.
The Taliban said that Sunday’s bombing was carried out to avenge the recent “barbaric bombardment” in Kunduz by foreign and government forces.
“A Toyota sedan packed with explosives was used in the attack. Two military tanks were destroyed and 12 foreigners were were killed,” the group’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.
The Taliban, toppled from power in a 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, are known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
The government claims to have wrested back control of Kunduz city but sporadic firefights continue with pockets of insurgents as Afghan soldiers, backed by NATO special forces, conduct clearance operations.
As fighting spreads in neighbouring Badakhshan, Takhar and Baghlan provinces, concerns are mounting that the seizure of Kunduz was merely the opening gambit in a new, bolder strategy to tighten the insurgency’s grip across northern Afghanistan.
Most NATO combat troops pulled out of Afghanistan last year but a small contingent focused on training and counter-terrorism operations remains, including roughly 10,000 American soldiers.
NATO forces are themselves under fire after a US air strike on October 3 pummelled a hospital in Kunduz run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), killing at least 12 staff and 10 patients.
The medical charity shut down the trauma centre, branding the incident a war crime and demanding an international investigation into the incident, which sparked an avalanche of global condemnation.
President Barack Obama has apologised over the strike, with three different investigations - led by NATO, US forces and Afghan officials - currently under way.
The Pentagon announced Saturday it would make compensation payments for those killed or injured in the strike, adding that US forces in Afghanistan could also pay for repairs to the hospital.
In a statement on Sunday, MSF said it had officially not received any details of the compensation.
The charity added that it would not accept any funds to repair the hospital, in line with its “longstanding policy is to not accept funding from any governments for its work in Afghanistan and other conflicts”.