Bomber Attacks Peacekeepers in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a bus carrying German peacekeepers in Kabul on Saturday, killing four and wounding more than two dozen in the first fatal attack on the international force.

The bus was taking 33 German peacekeepers to Kabul's international airport to return home — some on leave, some after completing their mission in Afghanistan — when the attack took place, said a spokeswoman for International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF.

The attacker apparently approached the ISAF bus in a vehicle and detonated the explosives at about 8:30 a.m. on a major road on the east side of Kabul, the U.S. military at Bagram Air Base said in a statement.

Gen. Afzal Amon, deputy commander of the Kabul garrison of the Afghan military, said a taxi that may have been driven by the suicide was found damaged in the blast.

Four German soldiers were killed and 29 wounded, seven of them seriously, German Defense Minister Peter Struck said in Berlin. Officials did not say how many attackers were killed.

Suspicion immediately fell on remnants of al-Qaida and the defeated Taliban regime, as well as fighters loyal to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The three groups have allegedly joined forces in a bid to destabilize the government of President Hamid Karzai, which is largely dependent on foreign troops for its survival. There was no claim of responsibility.

Afghanistan has seen an upswing in attacks — thought to be by Taliban fighters — against American troops, particularly in the south and east. But Saturday's blast was the first deadly assault on peacekeepers since they arrived in Afghanistan to bring security to the capital after the fall of the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.

"This cowardly and underhanded attack was carried out by terrorists who are against the efforts to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in Berlin.

Karzai, who returned Saturday from a trip to Britain, said he "strongly condemned the terrorist attack."

President Bush spoke with Schroeder by telephone, expressing his condolences and underlining that "the war against terror is not over and that Germany and America both have a special role to play in Afghanistan to return democracy and stability to this country," Struck said.

After the blast, witnesses described a chaotic scene, with bits of metal strewn around.

"The explosion made a very loud noise. It shook all of our shops," said Fawad Ahmad, who works at a tire repair store in the neighborhood were the attack happened, not far from the base housing German and Dutch troops.

Dozens of German peacekeepers formed a cordon in the streets around the blast site, barring vehicles, as a large German military helicopter landed in the road nearby

Authorities halted traffic and pedestrians were kept about 200 yards away. Ambulances and other emergency ISAF vehicles roared past.

Since the United States broadened its anti-terrorism campaign to include Iraq, there has been a surge in violence against Westerners in the Islamic world. A May 12 attack on housing complexes in Saudi Arabia killed at least 23 people, bombings in Morocco killed 31 victims, and there have been continued guerrilla assaults on U.S. troops in Iraq.

Before Saturday's explosion, 15 peacekeepers had died on duty in Afghanistan, all in accidents. In addition, 62 Spanish peacekeepers were killed in May when their plane crashed in Turkey as they were returning home after a four-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.

On May 15, two Norwegian peacekeeping troops were shot and wounded by a renegade Afghan soldier as they were traveling on a road north of Kabul. Two days earlier, a British soldier was slightly wounded when an Afghan man threw a grenade at a peacekeeping base.

In March, ISAF's headquarters in downtown Kabul was hit by a rocket, but no damage or casualties occurred. Also in March, an explosive device set off by remote control in Kabul wounded one Dutch peacekeeper and killed an Afghan translator.

Some 5,000 peacekeepers are in Kabul. Germany and the Netherlands currently command the force but are to hand over control to NATO Aug. 11. At about that time, German and Dutch forces are to return home and be replaced by about 1,800 Canadian troops.

In Brussels, NATO spokesman Robert Pszczel offered the alliance's "full sympathy to the families of the soldiers killed."

"It goes to show what a dangerous environment it is there," Pszczel said. "This reinforces our determination to do the job the nations have asked us to do."