A female suicide car bomber attacked a van in Kabul on Tuesday, killing 12 people, including eight South Africans, in an assault insurgents said was revenge for an anti-Islam film made in America. The bombing on a highway leading to Kabul international airport was the second suicide attack in the heavily fortified city in 10 days, reviving questions about stability as NATO accelerates a troop withdrawal and hands over to Afghan forces by the end of 2014. It came as officers revealed that Western troops are scaling back joint operations with Afghans after 51 NATO soldiers were shot dead this year by their local colleagues, a setback for the war strategy that focuses on training Afghans to take over.
An AFP photographer saw at least six bodies lying among the wreckage of a gutted minivan, and another vehicle destroyed by flames still burning in the middle of the highway, with debris flung all around. “At around 6:45 am (0215 GMT) a suicide bomber using a sedan blew himself up along the airport road in District 15. As a result, nine workers of a foreign company and three Afghan civilians are dead, and two police are wounded,” police said in a statement. The South African foreign ministry said eight of its citizens working for a private company at the airport were among the dead. The Afghan presidency later confirmed that three Afghans, believed to include the bus driver and an interpreter, and one citizen from Kyrgyzstan were also killed. Eleven other people were wounded, it said in a statement. Afghanistan’s second largest insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, claimed responsibility, saying it was carried out by a woman to avenge the “Innocence of Muslims” film.