Indian foreign secretary heads to Kabul after embassy bombing

Oct 9, 2009, 7:24 GMT

   New Delhi - Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao headed for Kabul Friday to take stock of the situation a day after a bomb attack aimed at the Indian mission in the Afghan capital left 17 dead and over 70 injured.

   Rao was due to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the interior and foreign ministers besides reviewing the security situation at the Indian embassy, a diplomatic source said.

   Three Indian paramilitary personnel were injured in Thursday's attack when a suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden vehicle into a wall of the Indian mission.

   There were no Indian casualties, but 17 Afghans, most of them gathered outside the Afghan passport office near the Indian mission, were killed.

   Stringent security measures were put in place at the embassy in downtown Kabul after a similar attack in July 2008 which killed more than 50 people, including four Indian nationals, and wounded over a 100.

   'Rao's visit aims to boost the morale of the staff at the Indian mission and to put across the message that India is committed to the stabilisation of Afghanistan,' the diplomatic source said.

   India is the sixth largest donor to Afghanistan's rehabilitation programme and has committed aid worth 1.2 billion dollars.

   The bomb attack on the Indian mission came a day after Rao said at an international conference in Delhi that India was committed to 'invest and endure' in Afghanistan.

   India's assistance programme includes medical missions, food assistance, roads, power stations and education and training programmes. India is also building Afghanistan's Parliament building in Kabul.

   Besides the embassy in Kabul, India has consulates in Kandahar, Mazhar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad, all of which have had several security alerts based on intelligence inputs since August, the Indian Express newspaper reported quoting intelligence sources.