A suicide car bomb attack outside a university in southern Afghanistan on Monday killed at least seven civilians and injured more than 20, officials said.
The attack happened around 7pm (1430 GMT) in Kandahar city in front of Kandahar University, around two kilometres from a major US military base, provincial police chief General Abdul Razaq told AFP. “This evening a suicide car bomb exploded near Kandahar University, killing seven civilians and wounding 23 others.” he said. The provincial governor’s spokesman, Jawed Faisal confirmed the death toll and said most of the victims were Afghans working at the US base, which was once the compound of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. “A Toyota Corolla packed with explosives rammed into a minivan full of workers coming from the base,” Faisal told AFP.
British soldiers: Meanwhile, an Afghan police officer killed three British soldiers serving with NATO in Afghanistan’s troubled south, the latest in a series of escalating “green on blue” attacks in the decade-long war. The deaths take to at least 26 the toll so far this year from 18 attacks in which Afghan forces turned their weapons against their Western allies. The defence ministry in London confirmed the soldiers were British, serving with an Afghan police advisory team, and were killed after meeting local elders in the Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand province. In keeping with policy, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) gave few details of the incident, which happened around 5pm (1230 GMT) on Sunday, but said the gunman was wounded and detained after the attack.
“An individual wearing an Afghan National Civil Order Police uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in southern Afghanistan… killing three service members,” ISAF said. Helmand provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi confirmed the man who opened fire was a member of the civil order police, an elite riot control force set up in 2006. British Prime Minister David Cameron said he was “deeply saddened” by the killings, while Defence Minister Phillip Hammond vowed that the “cowardly” attack would not deter British troops from their mission to build up Afghan forces. “Every day, tens of thousands of coalition forces, including UK personnel, live and work successfully with their Afghan counterparts to build an Afghan police force and army, which can take the lead for their own security by the end of 2014,” Hammond said.
