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The "deadliest attack [in Kabul] since the 2001 fall of the Taliban" took 41 lives and wounded 150 on Monday when a "suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into the Indian embassy," AFP reported.[1] -- A spokesman for the Taliban, which has been sponsoring a wave of suicide attacks, denied responsibility. -- "Many of the dead were Afghans collecting Indian visas." -- The blast occurred when the car rammed a vehicle carrying the Indian embassy's military attaché and a political counsellor as it was entering the embassy compound gates. -- Two other Indian officials were killed, the New York Times reported.[2] -- "There have been a number of attacks in Afghanistan in recent months notable for their increased sophistication and deadliness," Abdul Waheed Wafa and Alan Cowell noted. -- The Indian embassy is located "in what is supposed to be one of the best-guarded neighborhoods of the city, protected by police roadblocks. But the bomber managed to get through, and rammed a car laden with explosives into the embassy gates." -- Time said the dead included "a brigadier general, R.D. Mehta, who had started his post just five months ago and a foreign service officer, V.V. Rao, whose two-year tour of duty in Kabul was about to end. The bombing is likely to have regional ramifications," because "[m]any foreign policy hawks in India believe Pakistani intelligence operatives might be targeting India's interests."[3] -- "The U.N. sent an e-mail to its staff advising them to stay off Kabul's roads because of reports that a second suicide car bomber was in the city," AP's Amir Shah reported.[4] ...

KABUL -- A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into the Indian embassy in Kabul on Monday, killing 41 people and wounding nearly 150 others in the deadliest attack here since the 2001 fall of the Taliban, officials said.

The blast in the heart of the city scattered human flesh and severed limbs in front of the embassy compound, tearing down an outside security office and part of a wall. Charred and bloodied bodies littered a road outside.

"The toll of casualties we have so far is 41 martyred and 147 wounded. Among those killed are six policemen," Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP. Many of the dead were Afghans collecting Indian visas.

The Indian embassy's military attaché and a political counsellor were killed along with two Indian guards. The body of one of the diplomats was flung onto the roof of the embassy and only found hours later, officials said.

Indian ambassador Jayan Prasad, who was not hurt in the explosion heard across the city center, told AFP the suicide attacker rammed the diplomats' vehicle as it was entering through the gates of the embassy compound.

"The embassy has been blown up badly, the outer structures," another embassy official said on condition of anonymity. "We are walking on rubble."

Five Afghan security guards and two Indonesian diplomats were hurt at the nearby Indonesian embassy, which was also damaged, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was quoted as saying in Jakarta.

The blast was the worst in Kabul since the start of an Islamist insurgency launched after the hardline Taliban were toppled from government by U.S.-led forces for harboring the Al-Qaeda network after the 9/11 attacks.

The Taliban have carried out a wave of suicide bombings across the country in the past seven years, but a spokesman for the movement denied his group was involved in the Indian embassy attack.

The militants have previously denied involvement in attacks with high civilian casualties but authorities often blame them, pointing to their record of suicide bombings.

The Afghan interior ministry said "terrorists" had carried out the attack "in coordination and with advice from regional intelligence circles."

The Afghan government has repeatedly accused elements in Pakistan's army and its shadowy intelligence service of supporting to Taliban and other extremists for strategic interests. Pakistan denies the accusation.

President Hamid Karzai blamed the "enemies" of the good relationship between Afghanistan and India, one of the country's staunchest allies as the war-torn country battles the increasingly bloody Taliban insurgency.

He telephoned Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to offer his condolences and said his government would do all it could to find the attackers, his office said in a statement.

India has provided significant support to Afghanistan's efforts to restore order after the ouster of the Islamic extremist Taliban movement, which seized power in 1996.

"Such acts of terror will not deter us from fulfilling our commitments to the government and people of Afghanistan," the Indian government said in a statement.

The United States and European Union led international condemnation of the blast, pledging to stand by Afghanistan as it battles a growing wave of extremist violence in the region that has also seen a wave of deadly attacks in neighboring Pakistan.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon also condemned the attack "in the strongest terms," his spokeswoman said.

The international community has sent about 70,000 troops to Afghanistan to help them fight the militants but the insurgency has only gained pace, notably over the past two years.

In other violence Monday, a Canadian soldier died after being badly hurt in a bomb blast in the southern province of Kandahar, a Canadian commander said.

A roadside bomb similar to those used by the Taliban killed three Afghan police in the same province and a separate one killed four more in the neighbouring province of Uruzgan, government officials said.

SUICIDE CAR BLAST KILLS 41 IN AFGHAN CAPITAL
By Abdul Waheed Wafa and Alan Cowell

KABUL -- A huge blast from a suicide car bomb at the gates of the Indian Embassy on Monday killed 41 people in the deadliest suicide car bombing since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 ousted the Taliban.

Among the victims of the attack, the first in seven years on a regional diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, were at least four Indian citizens: the Indian defense attaché, a political counselor, and two other Indian officials. Six Afghan police officers were also killed. Many of the rest appeared to be civilians.

The fact that the Indian Embassy was attacked raised suspicions among Afghan officials that Pakistani operatives allied with the Taliban had used the bombing to pursue Pakistan’s decades-long power struggle with India.

India said it would send a delegation to Pakistan to investigate what the Indian Foreign Ministry called “this cowardly terrorist attack.”

There have been a number of attacks in Afghanistan in recent months notable for their increased sophistication and deadliness. Afghan and Western officials have said such attacks are signs of the growing strength of militants in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, and the influence of Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists and even elements of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.

Suicide bombers attacked the five-star Serena Hotel in January and mounted a sophisticated assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai during a military parade in April, an attack that Afghan intelligence directly linked to the Inter-Services Intelligence.

Pakistani intelligence has had a long involvement in supporting militant groups fighting in Kashmir and Afghanistan as a means to influence regions on its borders, and according to some Western diplomats and military officials, they maintain those links today, including with some elements of the Taliban.

In a statement Monday, Mr. Karzai said the “enemies of peace in Afghanistan” wanted to hurt Kabul’s international relationships, “particularly with India.”

“Such attacks will not hamper Afghanistan’s relations with other nations,” Mr. Karzai said.

The attack comes amid the worst summer fighting Afghanistan has seen since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, and as concerns mount about the weakness of the Karzai government. Taliban insurgents have proved resilient, NATO and military officials said, and killed 46 members of the international force serving here in June. That was the highest toll since the invasion in 2001.

The Indian Embassy is located on a leafy thoroughfare close to the Afghan Interior Ministry, in what is supposed to be one of the best-guarded neighborhoods of the city, protected by police roadblocks. But the bomber managed to get through, and rammed a car laden with explosives into the embassy gates.

Witnesses said the bomber struck as two diplomatic vehicles were approaching the gates. Nearby, people were standing in line for visas and shopping in a market. The explosion left body parts and bloodstained clothing strewn in the wreckage. Ambulance sirens wailed as residents peered at the wreckage of a dozen vehicles.

Haji Khial Mohammad, 45, one of those in line for an Indian visa, said he saw more than a dozen who appeared to be dead. “I was shocked and could not hear anything after the attack,” he said. “But I saw at least 10 men and three women in the queue who were probably killed.”

Mohammad Ajmal, 26, a shopkeeper in the market, said the explosion sent goods from his shelves spilling out. “I could barely could stand up,” he said.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahed, denied responsibility. “The suicide bomb attack was not carried out by Taliban, we strongly reject that accusation,” he said by telephone. “We don’t know who carried it out.”

The Taliban frequently disavows knowledge of attacks that cause heavy civilian casualties.

Pakistani intelligence has had a long history of supporting militant groups fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir, officials here said, and has regarded Afghanistan as its backyard. It fiercely resents the growing influence there of regional rival India. The Afghan Interior Ministry said it believed the attack was carried out in collaboration with “an active intelligence service in the region.”

The ministry did not elaborate on the identity of that service. But relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have become so strained after a series of attacks that Mr. Karzai has threatened to send troops across the border to attack militants operating from bases in Pakistan.

India, meanwhile, is a close ally of Afghanistan. It is spending $750 million on building roads and power lines here in what has become India’s biggest bilateral aid program ever.

It has opened consulates in several parts of the country, and promoted initiatives to offer scholarships for Afghan students.

But there have been some challenges to its influence. Several Indian workers have been killed in recent months, and Indian television shows have been restricted because of objections on religious grounds. Senior Indian Foreign Ministry officials have said for months that they were worried about the safety of Indian personnel in Afghanistan.

--Abdul Waheed Wafa reported from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, Somini Sengupta from New Delhi and Carlotta Gall from Islamabad, Pakistan.

NEW DELHI -- An Indian IL-76 transport plane flew to Kabul Monday to retrieve the bodies of four diplomats killed in a suicide bombing at India's embassy in the Afghan capital. The dead, who numbered 41, included a brigadier general, R.D. Mehta, who had started his post just five months ago and a foreign service officer, V.V. Rao, whose two-year tour of duty in Kabul was about to end. The bombing is likely to have regional ramifications, both for India's relations with its neighborhood, but also those of every other country supporting Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai.

Although the Indian government has given no official indication of who might be behind the attack, President Karzai called the bombing the work of the "enemies of Afghanistan-India friendship." And Afghanistan's interior ministry issued a similar statement, saying that "terrorists have carried out this attack in coordination and consultation with some of the active intelligence circles in the region." Typically, such statements -- a similar one was issued after a failed assassination attempt on Karzai in April -- are taken as thinly veiled allegations of involvement by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) organization.

Many foreign policy hawks in India believe Pakistani intelligence operatives might be targeting India's interests not just within its borders or in the disputed region of Kashmir, but also in Afghanistan. "There's been a clear escalation of terrorist attacks," says Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research. "Not just on Indian territory but elsewhere in the region as well."

Other foreign policy analysts suggest that the Kabul embassy attack was not simply a strike at an Indian installation, but also an attempt -- by the Taliban, the ISI, or anyone else -- to undermine President Karzai and anyone who supports him. "[The perpetrators] want to disrupt the current Karzai effort that's being supported by the West," says Uday Bhaskar, deputy director of the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis. "India is now part of that."

India and Pakistan have been vying for influence in Kabul for decades, and India -- which for years backed the opposition Northern Alliance against the Pakistan-backed Taliban regime -- came out on top after the U.S.-led invasion scattered the Taliban and installed President Karzai in power. India has pledged about $850 million in reconstruction aid to Afghanistan -- the largest amount from any country without a military presence in the country, according to Chellaney -- and the Indian embassy in Kabul attracts a daily crowd of Afghanis applying for visas.

Karzai's government, and the NATO mission that supports it, however, are looking increasingly beleaguered in the face of a resurgent Taliban -- last month, for the first time, more Coalition troops were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq. Like the U.S. and the U.K., Bhaskar says, India has to become "more engaged with the reality of the problem" in Afghanistan -- the embassy bombing shows that even nations without soldiers in Afghanistan can suffer casualties in its war. Says G. Parthsarathy, former Indian ambassador in Pakistan, "Very clearly, we are on the hit list."

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A car bomb ripped through the front wall of the Indian Embassy in central Kabul on Monday, killing 40 people in the deadliest attack in Afghanistan's capital since the fall of the Taliban, officials said.

The massive explosion detonated by a suicide bomber damaged two embassy vehicles entering the compound, near where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing and said it was carried out by militants trying to rupture the friendship between Afghanistan and India.

The Afghan Interior Ministry hinted that the attack was carried out with help from Pakistan's intelligence service, saying that "terrorists have carried out this attack in coordination and consultation with some of the active intelligence circles in the region." The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said Pakistan condemned the attack and terrorism in all forms.

The embassy is located on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistan's Interior Ministry in the city center that is protected on both ends by police checkpoints. Several nearby shops were damaged or destroyed in the blast, and smoldering ruins covered the street. The explosion rattled much of the Afghan capital.

Shortly after the attack, a woman ran out of a Kabul hospital screaming, crying and hitting her face with both of her hands. Her two children, a girl named Lima and a boy named Mirwais, had been killed.

Najib Nikzad, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said the blast killed 40 people. Earlier, Abdullah Fahim, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said the explosion killed at least 28 people and wounded 141, but an update of the number of injured was not immediately available. The Interior Ministry said six police officers and three embassy guards were among those killed.

In Delhi, India's foreign minister said four Indians, including the military attaché and a diplomat, were killed in the attack. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said India will send a high-level delegation to Kabul in coming days.

The blast also killed five Afghan security guards at the nearby Indonesian Embassy, where windows were shattered and doors and gates broken. Two diplomats were slightly wounded, Indonesia's foreign ministry said.

In Washington, Gordon Johndroe, a White House national security spokesman, offered condolences to the victims.

"Extremists continue to show their disregard for all human life and their willingness to kill fellow Muslims as well as others," he said. "The United States stands with the people of Afghanistan and India as we face this common enemy."

Afghanistan has seen a sharp rise in violence from Taliban militants in recent months. Insurgents are packing bombs with more explosives than ever, one reason why more U.S. and NATO troops were killed in June than any month since the 2001 invasion.

Still, a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the militants were behind the bombing. The Taliban tend to claim responsibility for attacks that inflict heavy tolls on international or Afghan troops, and deny responsibility for attacks that primarily kill Afghan civilians.

"Whenever we do a suicide attack, we confirm it," Mujahid said. "The Taliban did not do this one."

The 8:30 a.m. explosion was the deadliest attack in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and the deadliest in Afghanistan since a suicide bomber killed more than 100 people at a dog fighting competition in Kandahar province in February.

In Delhi, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said the attack would not deter the mission from "fulfilling our commitments to the government and people of Afghanistan."

Afghanistan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta visited the embassy shortly after the attack, ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmed Baheen said.

"India and Afghanistan have a deep relationship between each other. Such attacks of the enemy will not harm our relations," Spanta told the embassy staff, according to Baheen.

The Indian ambassador and his deputy were not inside the embassy at the time of the blast, Baheen said.

Militants have frequently attacked Indian offices and projects around Afghanistan since launching an insurgency after the ouster of the Taliban at the end of the 2001. Many Taliban militants have roots in Pakistan, which has long had a troubled relationship with India.

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the Islamic militia was supported by Pakistan, India's arch-rival. Pakistan today remains wary of strengthening ties between Afghanistan and India.

The United Nations' envoy to Afghanistan said that "in no culture, no country, and no religion is there any excuse or justification for such acts."

"The total disregard for innocent lives is staggering and those behind this must be held responsible," the envoy, Kai Eide, said.

The U.N. sent an e-mail to its staff advising them to stay off Kabul's roads because of reports that a second suicide car bomber was in the city.

The embassy attack was the sixth suicide bombing in Kabul this year. Insurgent violence has killed more than 2,200 people -- mostly militants -- in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count of official figures.

The embassy in the last several days had beefed up security by installing large, dirt-filled blast walls often used by military forces.

While Afghanistan has seen increasing violence in recent months, Kabul has been largely spared the random bomb attacks that Taliban militants use in their fight against Afghan and international troops.

In September 2006, a suicide bomber near the gates of the Interior Ministry killed 12 people and wounded 42 others. After that blast, additional guards and barriers were posted on the street.

In two separate bombings Monday against police convoys in the country's south, seven officers were killed and 10 others were wounded, officials said.

In Uruzgan province, a roadside bomb killed four police on patrol and wounded seven others, said provincial police chief Juma Gul Himat.

In the Zhari district of Kandahar, another roadside blast killed three officers and wounded three others, said district chief Niyaz Mohammad Sarhadi.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force, meanwhile, said one of its soldiers died in an attack in the south on Sunday.