Blast outside Indian Embassy in Kabul kills scores

Kabul: A suicide car bomb exploded outside the Indian Embassy in central Kabul on Monday, killing at least 41 people in the deadliest attack this year in Afghanistan's capital, officials said.

The massive bomb knocked down a wall and damaged two embassy vehicles when it exploded at the embassy entrance, where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas. The embassy is located on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistan's Interior Ministry in the city center.

Several nearby shops were damaged or destroyed in the blast, and smoldering ruins covered the street. The explosion rattled much of the Afghan capital.

"Several shopkeepers have died. I have seen shopkeepers under the rubble," said Ghulam Dastagir, a shopkeeper who was wounded in the blast.

The Interior Ministry said six police officers and three embassy guards were among those killed.

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

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.