Suicide bomber attacks Kabul airport base
A suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle outside a NATO military base at Kabul`s main airport on Tuesday killing at least two civilians, in the biggest attack in the Afghan capital since last month`s presidential election.
The attack was a further demonstration of deteriorating security at a time when violence is at its worst, an unresolved election has put the country`s political future in doubt and Western popular support for the war is being tested.
The Interior Ministry said two civilians were killed and six wounded, two of them seriously, in the airport attack. It did not say whether Western troops were hurt at the base. The NATO-led force was not immediately able to comment.
A shopkeeper who witnessed the blast told Reuters the suicide bomber had detonated his explosives close to one of the entrances of the military side of the airport.
"A suicide bomber in a `Surf` car (off-road vehicle) exploded himself near the main gate (guarded) by Nepali guards," said the shopkeeper, Izmarai, who uses only one name.
"Another man was riding his bicycle and fell to the ground. The police carried another wounded person away," he said.
Huge flames could be seen rising from the site of the blast and the wail of sirens could be heard several kilometers from the civil-military airport that has seen a series of Taliban rocket attacks and a suicide strike in the past.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said by telephone from an undisclosed location that the militants were responsible for the blast, targeting Western forces.
An Afghan soldier, Mohibullah, who said he had witnessed the blast, said two foreign soldiers had been killed, however this could not immediately be confirmed by the NATO-led force.
Afghan officials running the civil section of the airport said domestic and foreign flights were not interrupted.
The attack comes less than a month after a suicide car bomber struck the entrance to the NATO headquarters in Kabul, killing at least seven people and wounding 100 in the run-up to the vote.
ELECTION OUTCOME IN DOUBT
Election officials said they were finishing up the long-delayed count of results from the August 20 election, and were due to publish an almost-complete tally later on Tuesday.
The latest results, with 74 percent of polling stations tallied, show President Hamid Karzai falling just shy of the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off -- so close the final outcome could be delayed for weeks more by fraud investigations.
Most of the remaining votes are in the south, where Karzai has had strong support but where his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, says ballots were stuffed on a huge scale.
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