January 12, 2011
Suicide Bomber Strikes Bus in Afghan Capital
By RAY RIVERA and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber apparently singling out Afghan intelligence officers killed two people and wounded 36 on Wednesday in a crowded Kabul neighborhood near Parliament's offices. It was the third suicide assault here in the capital in less than a month.
The attack took place at about 8 a.m. when the bomber drove a motorcycle alongside a bus carrying employees of the National Directorate of Security and detonated a powerful explosion. A security directorate officer was among the dead, officials said, and at least six other agency personnel were wounded.
Mohammad Zahir, director of the Criminal Investigations Department of Kabul Province, said the death toll could rise because some of the wounded were in critical condition.
Another employee of the agency was killed Wednesday in a separate bombing in the eastern province of Kunar. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks.
The Kabul blast went off on a busy street lined with grocers and small shops, just a few feet from a Ministry of Health psychiatric hospital. At least six patients were among the wounded, though none seriously, as shattered glass and shrapnel blew through hospital offices and patient rooms.
Once a regular occurrence in the capital, bombings diminished sharply in 2010 but appear to be picking up. Last week, a bomb hidden in a rice sack [1] in downtown Kabul killed a policeman and wounded two civilians.
On Dec. 19, two militants wearing suicide vests [2] and armed with machine guns and grenades attacked a bus carrying Afghan National Army officers, killing five and wounding nine. The December blast was the first major attack in the capital since May, when a suicide car bomb struck a NATO convoy, killing 18 people, including five American service members.
In the northeast Kunar Province, meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman said militants killed the security agency's deputy chief for the province using a remote-controlled magnetic bomb placed under his car. Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the security directorate, confirmed the death.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/world/asia/05afghan.html
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/world/asia/20afghan.html