The Taliban claimed the deadly suicide attack that killed 18 people in the Afghan capital of Kabul today.
The suicide bomber targeted and hit a Coalition convoy as it traveled on the Darulaman Road in Kabul at approximately 8 a.m. The International Security Assistance Force confirmed the attack and stated that six of its soldiers were killed in the blast. Twelve Afghan civilians who were on the road were also killed in the attack.
“This sort of desperate brutality and aggression reminds us of the pessimism of an enemy who seek to kill the innocent and to stop the progress necessary for a better Afghanistan,” ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Josef Blotz said in a press release. “This will not deter us from our mission of securing a better future for this country.”
The Taliban stated that one of its fighters carried out the attack, in a statement released on its website, the Voice of Jihad. The Taliban claimed that a suicide bomber named Mujahid Isamuddin, who is a resident of the Qara Bagh district in Kabul, detonated a car bomb packed with “about 750 kg explosives.”
The Voice of Jihad website has been hacked since the issuing of the press release. Images of Taliban atrocities, including public executions, hangings, and burying a woman alive are displayed on the Taliban’s website and its sub-pages.
The Taliban have been instructed not to launch suicide attacks that risk the lives of civilians. The order, which came from Taliban leader Mullah Omar Mohammed, has largely been ignored, and civilians are routinely killed during Taliban suicide and other attacks.
Today’s suicide attack is the second in Afghanistan in two days. Yesterday in Kandahar, a team of three suicide bombers armed with assault rifles attacked a border police headquarters. The first suicide bomber detonated at the outer wall, opening a hole that allowed the two other bombers to enter the compound. Police killed the two other bombers during a gunfight that lasted nearly an hour.
