Four Afghans killed in Taliban bombings (Roundup)

Jan 12, 2011, 12:13 GMT

Kabul - Three intelligence agents and a civilian were killed in explosions in the Afghan capital Kabul and the eastern province of Kunar on Wednesday, officials said.

A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden motorbike in a crowded Kabul market during morning rush hour, Interior Ministry spokesman Zamarai Bashary said.

One civilian and one intelligence agent were killed in the blast and 32 others, most of them civilians, were injured, he said.

The bomber rammed his motorbike into a minibus which was carrying members of the National Directorate of Security, the country's spy agency, said Mohammad Zahir, head of the criminal investigation department of the Kabul police.

The Taliban were responsible for the bombing, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said by phone from an undisclosed location. He claimed 30 intelligence agents were killed and injured in the suicide bombing carried out by a Taliban fighter identified only as Ahmad.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, calling it 'a heinous, cruel act,' his office said in a statement.

'Carrying out a suicide attack in the middle of a crowded place with hundreds of innocent civilians present including women and children is against all Islamic and human principles and shows that the perpetrators are the mercenaries who seek nothing but to please their foreign masters,' Karzai said.

NATO and the US embassy in Kabul also condemned the attack in separate statements.

Also on Wednesday, a remote-controlled bomb killed the intelligence agency's deputy chief for the province of Kunar and his bodyguard, an official said on condition of anonymity.

Sahibzada, who like many Afghans goes by a single name, was driving to the office in the provincial capital Asad Abad when the bomb tore through his vehicle, the official said.

Taliban spokesman Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, saying four agents, including the deputy chief, were killed in the blast.

Last month, two suicide bombers ambushed an army bus in the eastern outskirts of Kabul, killing five military personnel and injuring nine. Last week, a policeman was killed and three people were injured in another bombing in Kabul.

The latest attacks came after a lull of about six months in the Afghan capital while violence escalated in others parts of the country.

International troops pushed militants from populated areas in their traditional power base in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand last year, but the Taliban insurgents expanded their activity in previously peaceful provinces in the country's north and west.

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