U.S. Soldier, Afghan Civilians Die in Kabul Car Bombing

KABUL, Jan. 17 -- A suicide car bomb attack on a heavily guarded road that runs near a U.S. military base and the German Embassy in Kabul killed at least one U.S. soldier and two Afghan civilians Saturday and injured at least two dozen other people.

The powerful explosion occurred about 9:45 a.m., shaking the foundations of buildings as far as two miles away and sending a wall of flames shooting up the front entrance of the German Embassy. Afghan authorities and U.S. military officials said the bomber drove his vehicle near the gates of the base and the embassy before detonating the explosives.

A Taliban spokesman asserted responsibility for the attack, saying the embassy was targeted because of Germany's support for the U.S.-led war in the region.

German Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment. But a German official in Berlin told the Associated Press that there were no German fatalities, although several embassy workers were wounded in the blast.

About 3,200 German troops are stationed in Afghanistan, mostly in the country's northern provinces where the Taliban recently tried with little success to gain a foothold. The embassy has served as the headquarters for German soldiers who are training Afghan police and Afghan army personnel. Attacks on German soldiers in the largely peaceful north have increased in recent months, making continued involvement in the war a hotly contested issue in Germany.

Several witnesses at the scene said they saw a Ford truck carrying two non-Afghan soldiers explode in flames near the front gate of the German Embassy. The blast engulfed the narrow, two-lane road between the embassy and Camp Eggers, the U.S. military base, charring several of the towering cement barrier walls at the edge of the installations.

There were conflicting accounts of casualties. Shortly after the blast, U.S. military officials said in a statement that two American troops had been killed and a dozen injured. Later, however, a U.S. military spokesman, Col. Jerry O'Hara, told news services that one U.S. service member had been killed and that seven Americans, including a civilian, had been wounded.

Some Afghan authorities said two Afghans had been killed, but the Interior Ministry told news services that four were dead. About 20 others were hurt.

Ranjeet, an Afghan who was driving near the embassy, said the blast knocked him from his motorcycle. "I saw seven to 10 bodies, and there were also injured people. They were lying on the ground, crying out for help," he said.

Witnesses watched in horror as several U.S. soldiers and security personnel struggled to recover the body of a comrade, dragging him out of a second-story window in a building on the military base.

The suicide attack in the center of the Afghan capital came as thousands of U.S. soldiers have begun arriving in the country to reinforce an estimated 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Also Saturday, an American soldier was killed when a U.S. Chinook helicopter made a crash landing in northeastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, according to the Reuters news agency. "Though the cause of the landing is currently undetermined, small-arms fire was present at the time of the incident," the military said in a statement.

And a NATO soldier on a patrol was killed Saturday in a clash with insurgents in southern Afghanistan, the military alliance said in a statement Sunday.

Special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.