Eight killed in Kabul suicide bomb blast in diplomatic quarter

A massive suicide car bomb ripped through the Afghan capital this morning – at the gates of an upmarket hotel – killing at least eight people and wounding dozens more.

The explosion sent a thick plume of black smoke billowing into the sky above Kabul’s diplomatic district, close to the British and Danish embassies.

Eyewitness Ahmad Jawad said that he saw six bodies on the unmade road, in the immediate aftermath of the blast. Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior said later that eight people were killed; four men and four women. Another 40 people were wounded.

“I was in my car when the bomb exploded in front of me,” said Mr Jawad, 21. “The force of the blast turned my car around. When I got out I saw six bodies in front of the hotel.”
The blast came as President Hamid Karzai was due to attend a conference on how to tackle government corruption at the Foreign Ministry, in a separate part of the city.

Khalilullah Dastyar, the deputy police chief in Kabul, said: “One car was thrown over in the air by the explosion and ten others were destroyed by the blast.”

The gates of the heavily fortified Heetal Hotel Plaza, which is popular with westerners, suffered some damage, but neighbouring houses took the brunt of the blast.

Sidiqullah, 21, who worked in a private guesthouse opposite the hotel said at least five of their staff were seriously wounded, including two Indian cooks.

Eyewitnesses said windows were blown out and a nearby roof had partially collapsed.

Nearby residents fled their homes in the immediate aftermath of the blast.

A former vice president also lived nearby. The home of Ahmad Zia Massoud, brother of late anti-Soviet guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, was heavily damaged.

A police source said the former vice president may have been the intended target.

The Wazir Akbar Khan district – built on the land where British were first based in the 1840s – is one of Kabul’s most expensive neighbourhoods.

Most of the multi-storey homes are owned by wealthy Afghans, including government officials, who lease them to western companies and foreign governments.

The Heetal Hotel, where suites cost up to $250 a night, was one of only a handful of hotels in Kabul deemed safe enough for visiting foreign dignitaries.

Source:The times