World | Afghanistan
Suicide bomb kills US service member in Kabul
A suicide car bomb killed a US service member, four Afghan civilians and wounded 19 others in an attack outside a US military base and the German embassy in the Afghan capital on Saturday, officials and witnesses said.
- Agencies
- Published: 17:30 January 17, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- Afghan policemen check the site of the explosion in Kabul.
Kabul: A suicide car bomb killed a US service member, four Afghan civilians and wounded 19 others in an attack outside a US military base and the German embassy in the Afghan capital on Saturday, officials and witnesses said.
A sewage tanker and several cars were burning at the scene.
One US service member died, while six US service members and a US civilian were wounded, a US forces statement said.
Four Afghan civilians were killed and 19 were wounded, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. An official at the Presidential Palace said earlier two civilians had been killed and 23 others were wounded.
Fourteen of the wounded were taken to the nearby Emergency Hospital and one died on the way, hospital officials said.
The bomber struck on a road lined with high concrete blast barriers that runs between the German embassy and Camp Eggers, the headquarters of a US unit that trains the Afghan army and police. The presidential palace and UN headquarters in Afghanistan lie immediately behind Camp Eggers.
A spokesman for the US force based at Camp Eggers said three soldiers had been evacuated to a military hospital at Bagram, the main US base north of Kabul. The perimeter of the base was not penetrated by the explosion, he said.
A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin said several embassy workers had been injured and there was considerable damage to the embassy building.
"Germany is committed to its involvement in Afghanistan. We will not be put off providing help for the Afghan people by terror and shock," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a statement.
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