AFGHANISTAN: Suicide bomb kills 9 Afghans including children and an Italian soldier in Kabul

A suicide bomber targeting Italian troops in Kabul has killed one of them, along with nine civilians, including children. A suicide bomb on the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday (November 24) killed nine civilians, four of them children, and an Italian soldier, the Italian army said. Four Italian soldiers were wounded in the attack and one of them died on his way to hospital, the Italian army said. The bomber targeted Italian troops at a bridge construction project in the Paghman district, just outside Kabul. Many local people had gathered round to watch, a senior police official said. The Italian army report of the death toll was at variance with comments made by Afghan police officer Zalmai Orya Khail. He said: "In Chishme Bulbul area at around 10:00am a suicide attack took place in which nine people have wounded including five children and six others have been martyred that among the six martyred three of them are kids and the rest are shopkeepers." The hardline Islamist Taliban have killed at least 200 civilians in more than 140 suicide attacks so far this year in their campaign to oust the pro-Western Afghan government and eject the more than 50,000 foreign troops from the country. The Afghan government "strongly condemns this brutal attack which is against humanity, Islam and the stability of Afghanistan," the Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement. Italy has nearly 2,400 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), most of them in the west of the country. But Italy also has troops in Kabul involved in reconstruction and development projects meant to win Afghan 'hearts and minds'. Afghanistan has witnessed steadily escalating violence since the Taliban relaunched their insurgency two years ago. Since then, more than 7,000 people have been killed.

ITN Source | November 24, 2007

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