KABUL, Afghanistan

By Zabihullah Tamanna

Three International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers were killed and 21 others, including five ISAF soldiers, were injured as a suicide car bomber targeted a NATO forces convoy at 08:00am local time in Kabul, Afghan officials said.

“We can confirm three International Security Assistance Mission force members died as a result of an enemy attack in Kabul today. Currently, Afghan officials and ISAF are reviewing the incident. It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities,” ISAF said in statement released after the incident Tuesday.

According to the Afghan officials, the suicide car bomber detonated an explosive near a NATO forces convoy passing by on the road to the airport and close to the U.S. embassy Tuesday morning.

“It was a suicide car bomber targeting a foreign soldiers’ vehicle on the road to the airport. According to our reports, 13 civilians were wounded and 19 cars including two ISAF vehicles were damaged,” Kabul Police Spokesman, Hashmat Stanikzai told the Anadolu Agency (AA).

According to a health official at the Ministry of Public Health, they have received 16 wounded Afghans.

“Our preliminary report shows that 16 injured Afghan nationals from the incident were sent to hospitals and some with minor injuries were treated at the site and released. I don’t have any figure on foreign forces casualties, since they took the injured staff to their own military hospitals,” the Ministry of Public Health spokesman, Dr. Kanishka Turkistani told the AA.

An eye witness, Mohammad Arif told AA his car and several others, including foreigners' vehicles, were damaged in the incident and he had seen several people lying on the road.

“Thank God I am fine. I was driving to the city and suddenly a big explosion took place which shattered glass and damaged cars. My eye lost vision for a while and the smell of gunpowder spread everywhere. When I opened my eyes, I saw that several people were killed and injured. I saw bodies of foreign soldiers lying beside their damaged vehicle,” he said.

The Taliban purported Spokesman, Zabihullha Mujahid claimed responsibility citing that two foreigners' armored vehicles were damaged and several of them have been killed. 

In a similar incident, two suicide bombers targeted NATO fuel tankers at a parking lot in Torkham, a town bordering Pakistan in the eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan last night, setting 26 fuel tankers ablaze.

www.aa.com.tr/en