Female car bomber kills 12 in Kabul–officials

Graphic map showing the location in Kabul, Afghanistan where 12 people were killed in a suicide attack including 9 foreigners. AFP

KABUL—A female suicide car bomber attacked a van in Kabul on Tuesday, killing 12 people, including eight South Africans, in an assault insurgents said was revenge for an anti-Islam film made in America.

The bombing on a highway to Kabul airport was the second suicide attack in the city in 10 days, reviving questions about stability as NATO accelerates a troop withdrawal and hands over to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

It came as officers revealed that Western troops are scaling back joint operations with Afghans after 51 NATO soldiers were shot dead this year by their local colleagues, a setback for the strategy that focuses on training Afghans.

An AFP photographer saw at least six bodies lying among the wreckage of a gutted minivan, while another vehicle destroyed by flames was still burning in the middle of the highway, with debris flung all around.

“At around 6:45 am (0215 GMT) a suicide bomber using a sedan blew himself up along the airport road in District 15. As a result, nine workers of a foreign company and three Afghan civilians are dead,” police said in a statement.

The South African foreign ministry said eight of its citizens working for a private company at the airport were among the dead.

The US embassy later confirmed that many of the dead worked for a private company providing services to USAID, as well as other organisations, and sent its condolences to the families.

The Afghan presidency said three Afghans, believed to include the bus driver and an interpreter, and a citizen from Kyrgyzstan were also killed. Eleven other people were wounded, it said in a statement.

Afghanistan’s second largest insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, claimed responsibility, saying the bombing was carried out by a woman to avenge the “Innocence of Muslims” film, which has sparked a week of furious anti-US riots across Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.

“The bombing was in retaliation for the insult to our Prophet,” spokesman Zubair Sidiqi said in a telephone call to AFP from an undisclosed location.

It is extremely rare for the faction to claim a suicide attack. It is also rare for women, few of whom drive in Afghanistan, to carry out suicide bombings.

A police investigator said he believed the bomber was female, after finding parts of a woman’s leg.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had spoken to Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week and voiced concern about this kind of “contagion”, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, referring to the spread of violence from the anti-Islam video.

In a remote district of eastern Afghanistan, three NATO soldiers were wounded and an Afghan civilian killed when an elderly suicide bomber blew himself up as troops tried to repair a bridge, officials said.

There have been violent protests in Afghanistan over the low-budget trailer for the film, which is believed to have been produced by extremist Christians. Hundreds hurled stones at a US military base and clashed with police.

In the northern city of Kunduz, university students threw stones at police and set fire to photographs of US President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

Under new orders, most joint patrols and advisory work with Afghan troops — the cornerstone of NATO departure plans — will have to be approved by a regional commander.

Cooperation with smaller units will have to be “evaluated on a case-by-case basis and approved by RC (regional) commanders”, ISAF said in a statement.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said scaling back joint operations in order to prevent further Western deaths by locals was prudent and temporary, and the coalition was still committed to handing security to the Afghans by end-2014.

“That is the bottom line. The goal is unchanged, the strategy remains the same and the timeline remains the same,” he said, while rejecting suggestions the move showed insurgents were gaining initiative.

NATO, which is helping the Afghan government fight a Taliban-led insurgency now in its 11th year, is gradually withdrawing its 112,600 remaining troops and US commanders have struggled to stem the problem of insider attacks.

The commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen, “has directed all operational commanders to review force protection and tactical activities in the light of the current circumstances”, a US military officer in Washington said in an email.

Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, speaking at a news conference in Beijing, said the attacks were worrisome but insisted they would not delay or derail plans to complete a withdrawal of troops by the end of 2014 as planned.

The decision came after six ISAF soldiers were shot dead by suspected Afghan police and after the Taliban destroyed six US fighter jets in an unprecedented assault on a major base in the south this weekend.

It was unclear how the new rules for joint patrols might affect the plan to pull out the bulk of NATO combat forces, as some Afghan units are considered ill-prepared to begin operating independently.