By IANS,
Kabul/New Delhi : Two Indian diplomats and two security personnel and at least 40 Afghans were killed when a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives at the gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul Monday, the worst terror attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban’s fall in 2001.
More than 100 people – overwhelmingly Afghans – were injured in the deafening blast around 8.30 a.m. when the embassy was opening for work and a large number of Afghans were queuing up outside to get visas, media reports and Indian and Afghan officials said.
The victims were mostly civilians, including women and children, an Afghan official added.
India identified its dead nationals as Defence Attache Brigadier R.D. Mehta and Press Counsellor V. Venkat Rao besides two men from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Ajay Paulia and Roop Singh. Rao is from the Indian Foreign Service and was earlier posted in Colombo.
An Afghan employee of the embassy, Niamutullah, was also killed.
One account of the incident said that Mehta and Rao were about to enter the building when the car bomb exploded.
The embassy is located on a tree-lined street in central Kabul, close to the interior ministry, and is part of a large Soviet built concrete complex.
Moments after the car exploded in a cloud of dust after apparently failing to enter the heavily guarded mission, ambulances and police vehicles blaring sirens rushed to the spot.
Many people fled the spot, screaming in terror. Others, including some of the injured, were too dazed to speak.Hundreds of Afghan troops and policemen quickly reached the area and helped to take out the mangled bodies and to rush the injured to hospitals.
An Indian embassy official said: “A large part of our building has been devastated.” Several cars parked in the area were damaged. Windowpanes of nearby buildings were shattered. The Indian embassy staff was quickly moved to safety.
The attack, which the interior ministry said was carried out by “terrorists in cooperation with some secret agencies in the region”, was heard in most parts of Kabul. It triggered firing by panicky US troops on a car near the Iranian embassy, injuring at least one person.
According to Danish Karokhil, head of the independent Pajhwok agency whose offices are close to the Indian mission: “The target was the diplomatic vehicles. They were trying to get inside the embassy when the suicide car bomber attacked them.
“There were many people killed and wounded. The police guards protecting the embassy were also hurt. I saw wounded and dead people everywhere on the road.”
Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee denounced the attack as “dastardly” and said an Indian official team led by Nalin Surie, secretary (west) in the ministry, would leave for Kabul “to assess the emergency situation concerning our mission”.
“The government offers its deepest condolences to the families and to the families of the others who were killed in the dastardly attack,” he said.
India, which has close ties with the Afghan government, vowed to continue assisting President Hamir Karzai’s administration to rebuild the war-torn country.
“The government of India strongly condemns this cowardly terrorists’ attack on its diplomatic mission in Afghanistan,” foreign ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna said. “Such acts of terror will not deter us from fulfilling our commitments to the government and people of Afghanistan.”
Afghan health ministry spokesperson Abdullah Fahim told Xinhua news agency that of the 90 rushed to hospital, at least 10 were in critical condition.
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta visited the Indian embassy soon after the attack and said: “India and Afghanistan have a deep relationship. Such attacks of the enemy will not harm our relations.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
In recent years, Kabul has witnessed a series of bomb explosions and suicide attacks blamed on the Taliban.More than 6,000 people were killed in violence in Afghanistan in 2007, nearly 2,000 of them civilians, according to official sources.