| Second blast, not the one we reported yesterday. |
The extremist Taleban group claimed responsibility for the morning rush-hour bombing, which struck in the south of the Afghan capital as Gates wrapped up a short visit to assess efforts against an intensifying insurgency. The bus was reduced to a blackened skeleton of mangled metal, its roof and sides blown out.
“It was a big explosion and sent fire into the sky,” said Akbari Sarwar, a journalist who was on the road when the blast hit. “When I moved in I saw scores of bodies, legs, arms, heads, flesh everywhere,” he told AFP.
Eight Afghan National Army soldiers and eight civilians were killed according to information given to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, spokesman Brigadier General Carlos Branco told reporters. Another defence ministry officials said on condition of anonymity that up to 20 civilians may have been killed, many of them children, but information was still being verified. Four of the dead were children in their early teens, health ministry spokesman Abudullah Fahim said. Seventeen people were treated in hospital, he said.