Suicide attack kills 16 in Kabul

A suicide attacker slammed a bomb-filled car into an Afghan army bus in Kabul Wednesday, killing at least 16 people. It is the second such blast in two days during a visit by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates. Suicide attack kills 16 in Kabul The extremist Taliban group claimed responsibility for the morning rush-hour bombing, which struck as Gates ended a short trip to Afghanistan and headed for Iraq's main northern city of Mosul on an unannounced visit. Gates arrived in Iraq's main northern city of Mosul on Wednesday on an unannounced visit, an AFP correspondent traveling with him said. The bus was reduced to a blackened skeleton of mangled metal, its roof and sides blown out. "It was a big explosion and sent fire into the sky," said Akbari Sarwar, a journalist who was on the road when the blast hit. "When I moved in I saw scores of bodies, legs, arms, heads, flesh everywhere," he told AFP. Eight Afghan National Army soldiers and eight civilians were killed according to information given to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, spokesman Brigadier General Carlos Branco told reporters. Another defence ministry officials said on condition of anonymity that up to 20 civilians may have been killed, many of them children, but information was still being verified. Four of the dead were children in their early teens, health ministry spokesman Abudullah Fahim said. Seventeen people were treated in hospital, he said. During his visit Gatese held talks with President Hamid Karzai about the violence being led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001. A suicide attack that targeted the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on the first full day of his visit on Tuesday missed the foreign soldiers but wounded 22 Afghan civilians. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks. The hardliners have been behind a wave of around 140 suicide bombings in Afghanistan this year, the bloodiest of the insurgency. In the past 12 days, there have been five suicide attacks in and around the city, with Wednesday's the deadliest. In June a suicide bomber boarded a police bus in the heart of the city and killed 35 people, many of them trainers at the police academy. That was the deadliest blast in Afghanistan until November 6 when a suicide attack in the northern province of Baghlan killed nearly 80 people, including six parliamentarians and 59 children. Gates, who has admitted he is concerned about the rise in violence in Afghanistan over the past few years, said after talks with Karzai that he was pushing the world's countries for more commitment to Afghanistan's future. In other violence, the British defense ministry reported late Tuesday that one of its soldiers was killed in combat in the south of the country. And the U.S.-led coalition, which works alongside ISAF, said it had killed several militants Tuesday in a raid against networks bringing foreign fighters and weapons for Taliban through the southern province of Helmand. Officials have reported more foreign fighters on the battlefield in the province and Helmand's town of Musa Qala has been in Taliban hands since early February, effectively operating as a base. Soldiers with the Afghan National Army and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have stepped up operations in Musa Qala district in the past month, a British military spokesman told AFP. "We haven't entered the town but we have been operating in the area since November 2," said Lieutenant Colonel Richard Eaton, ISAF's spokesman in Helmand. Some reports said the soldiers had come within 3.5 kilometres (two miles) of the town, which Eaton did not deny.

Suicide attack kills 16 in Kabul

The extremist Taliban group claimed responsibility for the morning rush-hour bombing, which struck as Gates ended a short trip to Afghanistan and headed for Iraq's main northern city of Mosul on an unannounced visit.

Gates arrived in Iraq's main northern city of Mosul on Wednesday on an unannounced visit, an AFP correspondent traveling with him said.

The bus was reduced to a blackened skeleton of mangled metal, its roof and sides blown out.

"It was a big explosion and sent fire into the sky," said Akbari Sarwar, a journalist who was on the road when the blast hit. "When I moved in I saw scores of bodies, legs, arms, heads, flesh everywhere," he told AFP.

Eight Afghan National Army soldiers and eight civilians were killed according to information given to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, spokesman Brigadier General Carlos Branco told reporters.

Another defence ministry officials said on condition of anonymity that up to 20 civilians may have been killed, many of them children, but information was still being verified.

Four of the dead were children in their early teens, health ministry spokesman Abudullah Fahim said. Seventeen people were treated in hospital, he said.

During his visit Gatese held talks with President Hamid Karzai about the violence being led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.

A suicide attack that targeted the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on the first full day of his visit on Tuesday missed the foreign soldiers but wounded 22 Afghan civilians.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks. The hardliners have been behind a wave of around 140 suicide bombings in Afghanistan this year, the bloodiest of the insurgency.

In the past 12 days, there have been five suicide attacks in and around the city, with Wednesday's the deadliest.

In June a suicide bomber boarded a police bus in the heart of the city and killed 35 people, many of them trainers at the police academy.

That was the deadliest blast in Afghanistan until November 6 when a suicide attack in the northern province of Baghlan killed nearly 80 people, including six parliamentarians and 59 children.

Gates, who has admitted he is concerned about the rise in violence in Afghanistan over the past few years, said after talks with Karzai that he was pushing the world's countries for more commitment to Afghanistan's future.

In other violence, the British defense ministry reported late Tuesday that one of its soldiers was killed in combat in the south of the country.

And the U.S.-led coalition, which works alongside ISAF, said it had killed several militants Tuesday in a raid against networks bringing foreign fighters and weapons for Taliban through the southern province of Helmand.

Officials have reported more foreign fighters on the battlefield in the province and Helmand's town of Musa Qala has been in Taliban hands since early February, effectively operating as a base.

Soldiers with the Afghan National Army and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have stepped up operations in Musa Qala district in the past month, a British military spokesman told AFP.

"We haven't entered the town but we have been operating in the area since November 2," said Lieutenant Colonel Richard Eaton, ISAF's spokesman in Helmand.

Some reports said the soldiers had come within 3.5 kilometres (two miles) of the town, which Eaton did not deny.