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Suicide Car Bomber Kills 12 In Afghanistan

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The New York Times

Published: August 19, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber drove a car into a crowd of workers at the gates of a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, killing 12 workers and wounding 22 others, Afghan officials said.

The bomber failed to penetrate the base, and no U.S. military personnel were wounded in the explosion, the military said.

The attack came early on Afghanistan's Independence Day, commemorating liberty from the British Empire in 1919. Hours later the two top U.S. generals in Afghanistan warned of a heightened security threat to civilian, military and government targets during the independence celebrations.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, at the gate of Camp Salerno in the eastern province of Khost, news agencies reported. The Taliban issued a statement that Afghanistan was once more under "occupation" by "crusaders" and called on Afghans to join and fight a jihad, a holy war, Agence France-Presse reported.

In Khost, the police chief said nine people had died instantly in the bombing and three more in the town hospital. Col. Abdul Qayum Baqizoy, the police chief, said the suicide bomber had rammed his explosives-packed car into a line of laborers at a gate where they gathered to be searched before going inside.

The colonel said a second suspect in the bombing was chased by security forces who had rushed to secure the scene and help evacuate the dead and wounded. The suspect escaped, he said, and bomb disposal experts later blew up his car outside the base.

"All the casualties were civilians," the provincial governor, Arsala Jamal, said.

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