Kabul: A suicide car bomber killed nine people in an attack on a military airport in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, officials said, the latest bloodshed since copies of the Quran were burned at a Nato base last week.
There was no official indication the explosion at the gates of Jalalabad airport was linked to the deadly protests, but the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack as "revenge" for the Quran burnings.
Nineteen Afghan civilians and law enforcement officers and four Nato soldiers were wounded in the blast, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, said.
Jalalabad airport is almost exclusively used by Nato and the US military.
Anti-Western fury has deepened significantly since the desecration of the Quran at the main Nato Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. Nato described the incident as a tragic blunder.
Lock down
The US Embassy warned of a "heightened" threat to American citizens in Afghanistan and many Westerners are on "lock down", meaning they are not allowed out of their fortified compounds.
Riots have raged across Afghanistan over the past week despite widespread apologies from US leaders, including President Barack Obama and military commanders. Seven US military trainers were wounded on Sunday when a grenade was thrown at their base in Afghanistan's north.
Chants of ‘Death to America!' have come to characterise the protests and some demonstrators have hoisted the white Taliban flag.
With few signs of the crisis abating, the US ambassador said the United States should resist the urge to pull troops out of Afghanistan ahead of schedule.
"Tensions are running very high here. I think we need to let things calm down, return to a more normal atmosphere, and then get on with business," Ambassador Ryan Crocker told CNN.
"This is not the time to decide that we are done here. We have got to redouble our efforts. We've got to create a situation that Al Qaida is not coming back," he said.
Under an international agreement, foreign combat forces are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, a process which is already under way.
Challenges highlighted
The groundswell of anger over the burning of the Quran has highlighted the challenges ahead as Western forces try to quell violence and bring about some form of reconciliation with the Taliban.
The violence has killed more than 30 people and wounded at least 200, including two US troops shot dead by an Afghan soldier who joined rallies in the east. Two US officers were also shot at close range inside the Interior Ministry.
Investigation under way
The Taliban on Monday claimed it was behind the poisoning of coalition troops' food in eastern Afghanistan as Nato launched an investigation after "traces of bleach" were found in fruit and coffee.
The investigation was opened after lab tests discovered the traces in the food at a base run by the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Nangarhar province, an ISAF spokesman told AFP.
"There were no injuries, no fatality. The investigation is ongoing," Master Seargent Nicholas Conner said, adding that Nato staff, Afghans and nationals from a third country worked at the dining facilities.
The Taliban, which is waging an insurgency to oust the 130,000-strong US-led ISAF force from Afghanistan, claimed that an "Afghan cook" had poisoned the food. The incident follows days of anti-US protests over the burning of Qurans at a US military base and the killing of two senior US advisers inside the nation's interior ministry compound — reportedly by an Afghan employee.
Two other US soldiers were killed, also in Nangarhar, by an Afghan trooper who turned his weapon on them as demonstrators approached their base last Thursday.
