Attack on military convoy near Darulaman Palace in Afghanistan kills 17 people, including US troops, civilian contractors and police officer
US forces in Afghanistan have suffered their deadliest insurgent attack in months after a car bomb filled with explosives rammed into the side of an armoured bus shuttling troops between Nato bases in Kabul.
The International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) initially said 13 of their troops died in the attack but, after further identification, it confirmed that five service members and eight civilian contractors had been killed.
Afghan and western officials privately confirmed that all of the dead soldiers were from the US.
That makes the bombing the heaviest loss of US life since a Chinook helicopter was shot down by the Taliban in August, killing 30 Americans and eight Afghans.
Four Afghan civilians were also killed in Saturday's attack, which the Taliban claimed responsibility for in a text message.
The Taliban said they had filled up the vehicle with around 700kg of explosives which struck at around midday on a thoroughfare overlooked by the iconic hulks of old royal palaces wrecked by Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990s.
One eyewitness said a red Toyota Corolla had been seen driving at high speed, in an apparent attempt to catch up with the heavily fortified bus.
The explosion was sufficient to rip the heavily armoured Rhino bus apart and throw it several metres, over the central reservation of the major road.
Many of the windows in a building half a kilometre away, that is used by Afghan MPs, were smashed.
"It was a huge blast," said Mohammad Wali, a student who had crossed the road just ahead of the Isaf convoy. "It threw the bus about 10m from the blast and sent shrapnel all across the area."
The vehicle had just begun a long journey across the city from Camp Julien, the home of a counterinsurgency school that teaches Afghan troops how to fight guerrilla warfare, to Camp Phoenix, a base that houses US trainers who work with the Afghan army and police.
Kabul's deputy police chief said eight civilians were wounded in addition to the four killed, while one of his own policemen was also killed.
A policeman at the scene, who did not wish to give his name, said he saw three dead school-age children with severely burned bodies.
In a separate incident, three Australian troops lost their lives in the southern province of Uruzgan when an Afghan soldier opened fire on them. Two died immediately, while a third died later of his wounds.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/29/kabul-suicide-bomb-deaths
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