Posts Tagged ‘bomb’

Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers have attacked buildings in the heart of the Afghan capital Kabul, setting off explosions and sparking gun battles. Fighting erupted near the Serena Hotel and the presidential palace, although Afghan President Hamid Karzai says security has now been restored. The Taliban said 20 of its fighters were involved.

Two civilians and three security personnel have been killed plus 71 others wounded, officials say. Seven attackers had also been killed, Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said. The city is now calm but there is concern that some of the attackers may still be at large. It is the latest in a series of increasingly brazen attacks on Kabul. A statement on a Taliban website said the raid had targeted government buildings and the hotel.

Images of the bomb blast

‘Under control’

A spokesman for the interior ministry told the BBC it believed seven suicide attackers were involved. Four attacked a shopping centre near the Serena Hotel and presidential palace. All were now dead and fighting there had ceased, the spokesman said. Three militants attacked a cinema about 400m away and two were killed there. At least two explosions were reported earlier. A statement from the president’s office said: “The Afghan president wants to assure the inhabitants of Kabul that the security situation is under control and order has once again been restored.”

It added: “The president condemns these terrorist attacks and has instructed the security entities to intensify security in the city and take action to arrest those responsible for these brutal and unpatriotic attacks.” The BBC’s Mark Dummett, who had been in the basement of the Serena Hotel during the attack, said the city was in lockdown, with hundreds of security officers patrolling the streets and a helicopter flying overhead. He said although the city appeared quiet, the discrepancy between the number of insurgents the Taliban said had taken part and the number given by officials suggested there could still be militants at large, and everyone remained on guard.

Speaking to BBC News from inside the ministry of finance, civil servant Emal Masood said he could see the Feroshgah-e-Afghan shopping centre was burned out. He said: “One of my friends has a shop there. He told me two men entered – insurgents, yes – and were yelling at people to get out of the building. He said he left his shop open and ran away. Police were coming in as he ran out.”

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WASHINGTON — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed a British newspaper report that said Iran is working on a trigger for a nuclear bomb as a “fabrication,” in an interview with US television released Sunday. Ahmadinejad waved away a copy of the purported document when presented it by ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer during a sit-down interview, according to excerpts released ahead of its scheduled airing Monday. “No, I don’t want to see this kind of document. These are some fabricated papers issued by the American government,” he says through a translator, in his first public remarks on the matter. Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman has previously dismissed the claim as a “scenario” hatched by Western powers. The British newspaper the Times reported last week that foreign intelligence agencies dated the documents to early 2007 — four years after US agencies had assessed Iran had suspended efforts to produce nuclear weapons.

The US State Department said Tuesday it would investigate the report, adding the “revelation” fueled concerns about Iranian intentions. It said the documents detailed a plan to test whether the device works — without leaving traces of uranium that the outside world could detect. Asked on ABC’s “This Week” program on Sunday about Ahmadinejad’s assertion that the documents were a US fabrication, senior White House David Axelrod dismissed the talk as “nonsense.” “Of course that’s nonsense. Listen, nobody has any illusions about what the intent of the Iranian government is,” Axelrod said. “And we’ve given them an opportunity to prove otherwise by allowing them to ship their nuclear material out to be reprocessed for peaceful use. And they have passed on that deal so far. And the international community is going to have to deal with that if they don’t change their minds.” Axelrod said Tehran would face “consequences” if it did not change direction, with time is running out ahead of a year-end deadline for Iran to seize the US offer of diplomatic engagement for resolving nuclear and other issues. Read the rest of this entry »

KABUL, Nov 21 (Reuters) – A rocket hit the outside wall of the luxury Serena hotel in Kabul on Saturday, wounding four people, including two boys, a health ministry official said. Ministry spokesman Ahmad Raaid said an Afghan soldier was also hurt in the attack. “None of the wounds are serious,” he told Reuters. An employee of the Serena Hotel said there was no damage to the hotel itself. Witnesses said police had sealed off roads leading to the building. Several rockets were fired at the hotel three weeks ago, forcing more than 100 people to rush into an underground bunker. On the same day, gunmen killed five foreign U.N. staff in a separate attack on a Kabul guest house. In January 2008, several Taliban gunmen stormed the hotel, which is near the presidential palace, killing six people including a Norwegian journalist. The Norwegian foreign minister, who was staying there at the time, was unhurt.  Since then, security has been stepped up at the hotel. Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst levels since the Taliban was overthrown in 2001. The Islamist militants have spread their insurgency from the south and east of the country into previously peaceful areas. Source

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A car bomb exploded outside a crowded market in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 24 people in the latest attack by suspected militants apparently aimed at avenging an army offensive along the Afghan border. The bombing, aimed at causing maximum civilian casualties, was the third blast in as many days in or close to Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, an area bordering the tribal region where the army is pushing into a key Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuary. The blast in Charsadda, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Peshawar, was caused by some 90 pounds (40 kilograms) of explosives stuffed into a van, said the senior police chief in Peshawar, Liaqat Ali Khan. Authorities were investigating whether the attack, which killed at least 24 people and wounded 102 others, was carried out by a suicide bomber, he said. Rashid Kaka said he was returning from the mosque to his shop in the market when the bomb exploded, destroying stores on both sides of the road and knocking down electrical wires.

“It was deafening and there were clouds of dust all around. I could not see anything around me,” said Kaka. “Later I saw many bodies lying scattered.” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi condemned the attack, calling those behind it the “enemies of Islam. No one claimed responsibility, but authorities have blamed similar attacks in recent weeks on the Taliban. The insurgents apparently hope the blasts will weaken the resolve of the army, which launched an offensive in mid-October against militants in South Waziristan, the main Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuary in Pakistan’s tribal area along the Afghan border. On Monday, a suicide bomber in a rickshaw detonated his explosives near a group of policemen in Peshawar, killing three people. A day before, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a market south of Peshawar, killing 12 people, including a mayor who once supported but had turned against the Taliban. Read the rest of this entry »