Nine including 3 foreigners killed in Afghan suicide bombing (Roundup)

Jan 28, 2011, 13:39 GMT

Kabul - Nine people including three foreigners and a child were killed in an explosion that rocked the diplomatic enclave of the Afghan capital on Friday, officials said.

The blast tore through a supermarket in Wazir Akbar Khan, an area in central Kabul which houses almost all the foreign embassies, said Mohammad Zahir, head of Kabul's criminal investigations department.

The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, the presidential palace said. Nine people were killed and seven others were injured, it said.

Zahir said that a 6-year-old Afghan child was among those killed. Hashmat Stanikzai, spokesman for the Kabul police, said that three female foreigners were killed in the blast and their bodies were taken to a military hospital in Kabul.

Nooraughly Kargar, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health had earlier said that 13 injured had been brought to four hospitals.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and called it 'an un-Islamic and inhumane action.'

'Terrorists and enemies of Afghanistan have become so desperate that they killed defenceless and innocent civilians inside a grocery shop,' Karzai was quoted in the presidential office's statement as saying.

'There is no justification for killing women in the Afghan culture or Islamic civilization,' he said.

The Finest grocery shop, which offers regional and Western products, has been mostly frequented by foreigners and wealthy Afghans. It is located near the British and German embassies and in one of the city's most tightly guarded districts.

Piles of canned goods and other grocery items were strewn inside and outside the two-story supermarket, while a fire was burning for around one hour before fire trucks arrived, according to a German Press Agency dpa reporter at the scene.

'Three of my sisters are inside,' shouted a crying Afghan boy, who was stopped by police officers cordoning off the area around the shop. 'They came here for shopping.'

'I heard some gunfire first and then there was a big explosion,' said witness Abdul Ghani. 'I wanted to finish my cigarette and then enter the shop, but it seems I was lucky.'

Two militant groups took responsibility for the attack.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told dpa by phone that one of their bombers, named Attaullah, carried out the attack.

He said the prime target of the bombing was the country head of a US-based private security company XE Services, previously known as Blackwater Worldwide.

'He first opened fire at the Blackwater chief and then detonated his explosives,' Mujahid said.

A spokesman for Hezbi Islami, another insurgent group associated with the Taliban, also took responsibility for the attack, saying the bombing was carried out by Rafiullah, a resident of the northern province of Balkh.

Operatives of both Hezbi Islami and Taliban are active in Kabul and surrounding provinces and have been behind numerous past attacks in the capital.

Last month, two Taliban suicide bombers ambushed an army bus in the eastern outskirts of Kabul, killing five military personnel and injuring nine. Earlier this month, 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 capital while violence escalated in others parts of the country.

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