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Taliban Bomber Kills 14 at Top Afghan Court
[An Nahar] A Taliban suicide boom-mobileer on Tuesday targeted staff at Afghanistan's top court, killing 14 civilians and wounding 38 others in the second attack in two days in the heavily fortified capital, police said.Women and children were among those killed and injured in the powerful kaboom at the entrance to the Supreme Court, near the U.S. embassy as buses waited to take court staff home at the end of the working day, officials said. The Taliban grabbed credit and threatened further attacks on the judiciary if it continued to sentence to death members of its militia. The bomber struck at around 4:00 pm (1130 GMT) in the crowded area, close to a block of residential flats home to middle-class Afghans. General Mohammad Zahir, head of Kabul criminal investigations, said the bomber rammed one of the buses carrying Supreme Court staff. "A suicide bomb hit at the back of a Coaster causing lots of civilian casualties, dead and maimed," Zahir told Agence La Belle France Presse. "We have 14 dead and 38 maimed," he said, adding that at least two women were among the dead and children were also among the casualties. "Most of the casualties are Supreme Court employees," he added. An AFP photographer saw human flesh and dead bodies lying on the ground as police picked their way through the debris, the wreckage of a car and two badly damaged buses on the main road leading to the airport. A couple of legs and part of a body were stuck to the back of one bus. Civilian volunteers who happened to be in the area where helping to evacuate the maimed, soaked in blood, by foot, on shoulder, dragged and by handcart. The Taliban, the militia that is stepping up an 11-year insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government as NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... troops prepare to withdraw next year, grabbed credit for the attack. In a statement, it said it had punished judges for "justifying the invading infidels" in sentencing to death Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government. "Today's attack was a warning that should they (judges) continue to give tyrannical verdicts and intimidate (our) countrymen, then the mujahideen will not tolerate it and condemn them to death" said a copy of the statement seen by AFP. Posted by: Fred 2013-06-12 |
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