Kabul Bombing Target's Indian Embassy, Kills 18

A suicide bomb attack, on Thursday morning near the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killed 18 and injured 82. The attack was carried out by a car loaded with explosives which exploded besides the Indian Embassy wall. This is the second bomb blast targeted at the Indian Embassy in the last two years.

Nirupama Rao, the Indian foreign secretary, said, "The suicide bomber came up to the outside perimeter wall of the embassy, with a car loaded with explosives obviously with the aim of targeting the embassy." The bombing occurred at around 8:30 am, as a man driving a SUV(sports utility vehicle) slowed down near the side wall of the Embassy and detonated the explosives.

Only three guards were injured in yesterday's incident at the Embassy. The rest of the staffers are safe. Of the 18 killed, at least 15 were civilians. Habib Jan, a witness of the car bombings said, "It was rush hour and about 10 minutes after I arrived at the office, we heard an explosion. There were lots of workers cleaning the street – most of them have been killed".

Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack and has affirmed that Indian Embassy was the target. Indian intelligence has said that this prompt claim is just a way of diverting attention away from the ISI. The ISI's involvement in the July 2008 blast near the Indian Embassy has been widely accepted. This blast at Kabul has an uncanny resemblance to the previous attack in July 2008, when a car bomb detonated around the place at the same time, including the way the explosives were packed into the car. This blast comes in the wake of decisions being taken by the US, to find the right way to combat war and terrorism in Afghanistan, and aid surge in Pakistan. US also believes that most top leaders of Al Qaeda and Taliban are in Pakistan.