AFGHANISTAN/US: A bomb exploded outside the newly reopened US embassy in Kabul in the first reported attack on the growing international presence in Afghanistan, sources said last night
UN personnel, diplomats, and aid workers in the Afghan capital have been warned there could be an attack on a major installation in Kabul in the days ahead. A contingency plan has been drawn up for the emergency evacuation of all UN staff from Afghanistan.
The bomb, an anti-personnel mine, exploded after dark outside the US embassy last Thursday, said a source who was briefed on the incident the following day. No one was hurt in the blast.
When US guards went to inspect the damage outside the embassy the following morning, they discovered the area was booby-trapped with several more bombs. Trip wires were connected to more anti-personnel mines in the area of the US embassy and of the headquarters for the British-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) a few hundred yards away. The booby-trap bombs were defused.
The bomb was the first known targeting of Americans or international forces in Kabul. But newly arrived German troops taking part in the ISAF spent yesterday digging ditches around their encampment after the German government received intelligence warnings that they could be attacked by a suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives.
Two US troops died and five more were injured, two critically, yesterday when their helicopter crashed south-east of Kabul after taking off from the Bagram airbase north of the capital. Military spokesmen and the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld,said there were no signs of hostile fire on the helicopter and that initial indications suggested mechanical failure.
Witnesses at the airport last night, however, reported helicopters and aircraft were now taking off using flares whose heat deflects heat-seeking missiles targeting the aircraft.
The flurry of warnings, the embassy bomb, and the helicopter crash have all contributed to an air of menace and insecurity in Kabul and beyond.
UN sources said the security situation in the country had deteriorated in the past week. The ISAF patrols in the city, intended to boost security and confidence, are few and far between, barely visible in the streets.
It was not clear who was responsible for the embassy bomb, but it was not necessarily being blamed on Taliban recalcitrants who would find it easy to infiltrate Kabul. Powerful anti-Taliban warlords outside Kabul who feel they are being cut out of the western-supported post-Taliban dispensation also have scores to settle.
The US is singling out Mr Ismail Khan, the pro-Iranian fighter who runs western Afghanistan from his power base in Herat, for particular criticism. UN sources said Iran was currently flying in arms and supplies to Mr Khan, who has yet to declare his loyalty to the interim government headed by the pro-US, Mr Hamid Karzai. Afghan government sources indicate US bombings on the Herat region were punitive strikes on Mr Khan's forces. -