Suicide Attack in Afghanistan Kills 7 but Spares Governor
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
November 20, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 19 -- A provincial governor in southwestern Afghanistan narrowly escaped a suicide attack on Monday, but his 25-year-old son and five of his bodyguards were killed in the blast. A civilian bystander was also killed, and 14 others were wounded, the police said.
The bomber approached the governor's compound on foot on Monday morning just 10 minutes after the governor, Ghulam Dastagir Azad, had entered his office in the town of Zaranj, in Nimruz Province. He detonated his charge at the entrance to the compound, where the governor's son was standing among a group of people, according to the provincial police chief, Muhammad Dawood Askaryar. Chief Askaryar said that of the wounded, six were policemen, three were employees of the governor's office and three were civilians.
Zaranj lies on the border with Iran and has been relatively free of insurgent attacks and the strong Taliban presence seen in the rest of the south and southeast of the country.
In Kabul, security forces thwarted a suicide attack on a military bus carrying Afghan Army trainers and staff members to work. A man wearing an explosive vest tried to climb into the bus, but a man at the door knew immediately that he was not an officer and grabbed him, said Gen. Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense.
Other people on the street also helped subdue the man and somehow prevented him from detonating. They called the police, who defused the explosives. The man later said he was from Pakistan, General Azimi said.
Gen. Ali Shah Paktiawal, the director of the criminal investigation department of the Kabul Police, confirmed the man's nationality and said he was 25. He said the man was the second Pakistani to be arrested as a suspected suicide bomber on Monday.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for previous attacks in Kabul over the past few months. On Sept. 29, an attacker detonated his charge in a military bus, killing about 30 people. A similar explosion in June killed at least 35, most of them trainers at the Afghan Police Academy.