Kabul, Afghanistan – A suicide car bomber struck near a U.S. military base Sunday, killing at least one person, and a U.S. soldier was reported killed in fighting with insurgents in southern Afghanistan.
A car accident apparently prevented the suicide bomber from reaching his intended target, believed to be a store frequented by foreigners on the outskirts of Kabul, said Yousuf Stanizai, spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry. Or the target may have been U.S. or NATO forces that have bases on the same road, Stanizai said.
The bomber, who was in a taxi with Kabul license plates, hit a truck and exploded near the Supreme PX around 10 a.m. Sunday. A man passing by and the suicide bomber died, Stanizai said. The blast set two shops on fire.
More than four years after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001, Afghanistan’s insurgency is escalating.
The Afghan government is sharpening its criticism of neighboring Pakistan, charging that insurgent leaders are coordinating cross-border attacks from Pakistani territory.
“The leadership of the Taliban and other terror groups are living in Pakistan,” the new Afghan foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, told reporters Sunday.
A U.S.-led coalition aircraft killed about 50 suspected Taliban rebels in an airstrike on a rebel stronghold in southern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the force said.
The attack occurred late Sunday and early today on the village of Azizi in Panjwayi district, Kandahar province, said a coalition spokesman, Maj. Scott Lundy.
“It was against a known Taliban stronghold and we believe it resulted in about 50 Taliban killed,” he said.
