A suicide car bomb tore open the front wall of the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Monday, killing 41 people and wounding 147 in the deadliest attack in Afghanistan's capital since the fall of the Taleban seven years ago. The massive explosion detonated by a suicide bomber damaged two embassy vehicles entering the compound, near where dozens of Afghans line up every morning to apply for visas. Several nearby shops were damaged or destroyed in the blast, and smoldering ruins covered the street. “Several shopkeepers have died. I have seen shopkeepers under the rubble,” said Ghulam Dastagir, a shopkeeper who was wounded in the blast. In Delhi, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said four Indians, including the military attache and a diplomat, and two Indian guards were killed in the attack. The 8:30 a.m. explosion also killed five Afghan security guards at the nearby Indonesian Embassy. Two diplomats were slightly wounded, Indonesia's foreign ministry said. The blast blew the embassy gates off, all but demolished the embassy walls and badly damaged buildings inside the compound. Windows were shattered hundreds of metres away. The embassy is located on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistan's Interior Ministry in the city center. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta visited the embassy shortly after the attack. “India and Afghanistan have a deep relationship between each other. Such attacks of the enemy will not harm our relations,” Spanta told the embassy staff. In Washington, Gordon Johndroe, a White House national security spokesman, offered condolences to the blast victims. “Extremists continue to show their disregard for all human life and their willingness to kill fellow Muslims as well as others,” he said. “The United States stands with the people of Afghanistan and India.” A Taleban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the militants were behind the bombing. The Taleban tend to claim responsibility for attacks that inflict heavy tolls on international or Afghan troops, and deny responsibility for attacks that primarily kill Afghan civilians. “Whenever we do a suicide attack, we confirm it,” Mujahid said. “The Taleban did not do this one.” President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing and said it was carried out by militants trying to rupture the friendship between Afghanistan and India. The Interior Ministry, meanwhile, hinted that the attack was carried out with help from Pakistan's intelligence service.” Meanwhile, Pakistan's foreign minister, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said it condemned the attack and terrorism in all forms. It was the deadliest in Afghanistan since a suicide bomber killed more than 100 people in 2001 at a dog fighting competition in Kandahar in February.
