A suicide car bomber killed at least nine people in an attack on a military airport in eastern Afghanistan today, officials said, the latest incident of violence and protests since copies of the Koran were inadvertently burned at a Nato base last week.
There was no official indication the explosion at the gates of Jalalabad airport was linked to other deadly protests and riots, although the Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack as "revenge" for the Koran burning.
Anti-Western anger has deepened significantly since the desecration of the Muslim holy book at the main Nato base in Afghanistan.
Twelve people were wounded by the suicide bomb at the airport and casualties appeared to be civilians and Afghan soldiers who were guarding the gate, the interior ministry said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is capital, said the explosion did no damage inside the military airport, which is used by ISAF troops.
Riots have raged across Afghanistan over the past week despite widespread apologies from US leaders, including President Barack Obama and military commanders.
Yesterday, seven US military trainers were wounded when a grenade was thrown at their base in Afghanistan's north.
Chants of "Death to America" have been common at protests and some demonstrators have raised the white Taliban flag.With few signs of the crisis abating, the US ambassador to Afghanistan said the United States should resist the urge to pull troops out of Afghanistan ahead of schedule.
"Tensions are running very high here. I think we need to let things calm down, return to a more normal atmosphere, and then get on with business," ambassador Ryan Crocker told CNN's State of the Union in an interview from Kabul.
"This is not the time to decide that we are done here. We have got to redouble our efforts. We've got to create a situation that al-Qaeda is not coming back," he said.
Under an international agreement, foreign combat forces are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, a process which is already under way.
Reuters