Kabul Blast Shows Taliban Capability

Airstrike Targeting Suspected Al-Qaeda Site Kills 7 Children

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 18 -- Since winter, the Taliban had been promising a spring offensive. It didn't come. Instead, NATO and U.S. forces have pounded the group's positions and killed its senior leadership.

But with summer well underway in Afghanistan, the radical Islamic movement showed on Sunday that it is still capable of mounting one of the most devastating insurgent strikes the country has seen.

In the single deadliest suicide attack since the Taliban was ousted from power in 2001, a bomber hopped on a packed bus in downtown Kabul and triggered his explosives, killing 24 to 35 people and wounding dozens more. A purported commander for the Taliban asserted responsibility for the attack.

The blast could be heard for miles around in the capital, and it sheared off the top of the bus, which had been ferrying police academy recruits and trainers to class.

Hours later, three service members in the U.S.-led coalition and their Afghan interpreter died in the southern province of Kandahar when a roadside bomb detonated near their vehicle. The nationalities of the service members were withheld until their families could be notified.

In further violence Sunday, U.S.-led coalition forces killed seven children and several insurgents during an airstrike against a suspected al-Qaeda compound, the coalition said early Monday. The attack, which occurred in the eastern province of Paktika, was carried out after security forces confirmed "nefarious activity" occurring at the site, which included a mosque and a madrassa, or religious school.

"This is another example of al-Qaeda using the protective status of a mosque, as well as innocent civilians, to shield themselves," said coalition spokesman Army Maj. Chris Belcher in a statement. "We are saddened by the innocent lives that were lost as a result of militants' cowardice."

U.S. and NATO-led forces have come under heavy criticism from Afghans in recent months for not doing more to limit civilian casualties during their operations.

The Kabul attack raised fresh fears that the Taliban is acquiring more sophisticated weaponry with which to wage war against the Afghan government and its international backers. Security forces are concerned that the Taliban is adopting strategies and technologies from insurgents in Iraq, a potentially ominous sign even as it takes heavy losses in battles in the Afghan countryside.

"If you're in the terrorist business, it makes sense to look around at what works elsewhere. So we expect there's going to be some migration of tactics and perhaps weapons," said Maj. John Thomas, spokesman for the NATO-led force that patrols much of the country.

Thomas said that while it was too early to know the origin of the bomb material in Sunday's blast, a NATO counter-explosives team will be combing through the wreckage "very carefully. We want to find out everything we can."

The attack in Kabul came at the height of the morning rush hour on a busy street near the Afghan capital's police headquarters. In addition to destroying the police bus, it also obliterated a nearby van filled with civilians.