<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Sep 17, 2009
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Nato convoy hit, 16 dead <!--10 min-->
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An ISAF spokesman was unable to confirm foreign casualties, telling AFP: 'We have no information about any Nato or ISAF involvement.' -- PHOTO: AFP
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->KABUL - A MASSIVE suicide car bomb ripped into a Nato convoy killing six Italian soldiers and 10 Afghan civilians on Thursday in one of the deadliest attacks on Western troops in Kabul, officials said.
The explosion struck just after midday about 1.5 kilometres from the US embassy gates on the busy airport road, destroying at least one vehicle in the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Six Italian soldiers were killed and another three wounded, the Italian defence ministry announced after the Taleban claimed one of the worst single attacks on the more than 100,000 Nato and US-led troops serving in Afghanistan.
Armoured vehicles showing the Italian flag and marked with the ISAF logo were damaged, scattering twisted metal across the blood-stained road and shops destroyed by the power of the blast, witnesses said.
'I heard a huge blast and then thick black smoke,' said shopkeeper Sawad. 'I thought that day had become night. When I came back, for minutes I couldn't see anything. Then I saw one man lying on the tarmac without a head.'
Italian Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa told the Senate in Rome that 10 Italian paratroopers were travelling in two armoured vehicles when the suicide bomber struck, apparently in a white Toyota vehicle. 'Sadly I must confirm the loss of six human lives from the parachute regiment,' he said. Italy is the sixth biggest contributor of Western forces fighting in Afghanistan with about 3,250 troops on the ground.
The body of an ISAF soldier lay by the road and the remains of three more bodies were pulled from the wreckage of an armoured vehicle, destroyed in the bomb which shook buildings across Kabul, an AFP reporter said.
'In the suicide car bomb attack today, 10 civilians were martyred and another 55 civilians were wounded,' interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP. 'It was a car bomb suicide attack targeting international forces.'
The Taleban, which is waging an insurgency against the Afghan government and its Western military backers, swiftly claimed responsibility for the blast. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the militia carried out the suicide attack, speaking in a telephone call to AFP.
President Hamid Karzai, who won a clear majority in last month's presidential election according to preliminary results, condemned the attack as 'barbaric' and 'anti-Islamic.' Kabul, which is home to significant numbers of Western officials, troops and aid workers, has suffered a recent spike in suicide blasts claimed by Taleban militants bent on toppling the Western-backed government. -- AFP
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Nato convoy hit, 16 dead <!--10 min-->
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
An ISAF spokesman was unable to confirm foreign casualties, telling AFP: 'We have no information about any Nato or ISAF involvement.' -- PHOTO: AFP
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->KABUL - A MASSIVE suicide car bomb ripped into a Nato convoy killing six Italian soldiers and 10 Afghan civilians on Thursday in one of the deadliest attacks on Western troops in Kabul, officials said.
The explosion struck just after midday about 1.5 kilometres from the US embassy gates on the busy airport road, destroying at least one vehicle in the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Six Italian soldiers were killed and another three wounded, the Italian defence ministry announced after the Taleban claimed one of the worst single attacks on the more than 100,000 Nato and US-led troops serving in Afghanistan.
Armoured vehicles showing the Italian flag and marked with the ISAF logo were damaged, scattering twisted metal across the blood-stained road and shops destroyed by the power of the blast, witnesses said.
'I heard a huge blast and then thick black smoke,' said shopkeeper Sawad. 'I thought that day had become night. When I came back, for minutes I couldn't see anything. Then I saw one man lying on the tarmac without a head.'
Italian Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa told the Senate in Rome that 10 Italian paratroopers were travelling in two armoured vehicles when the suicide bomber struck, apparently in a white Toyota vehicle. 'Sadly I must confirm the loss of six human lives from the parachute regiment,' he said. Italy is the sixth biggest contributor of Western forces fighting in Afghanistan with about 3,250 troops on the ground.
The body of an ISAF soldier lay by the road and the remains of three more bodies were pulled from the wreckage of an armoured vehicle, destroyed in the bomb which shook buildings across Kabul, an AFP reporter said.
'In the suicide car bomb attack today, 10 civilians were martyred and another 55 civilians were wounded,' interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP. 'It was a car bomb suicide attack targeting international forces.'
The Taleban, which is waging an insurgency against the Afghan government and its Western military backers, swiftly claimed responsibility for the blast. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the militia carried out the suicide attack, speaking in a telephone call to AFP.
President Hamid Karzai, who won a clear majority in last month's presidential election according to preliminary results, condemned the attack as 'barbaric' and 'anti-Islamic.' Kabul, which is home to significant numbers of Western officials, troops and aid workers, has suffered a recent spike in suicide blasts claimed by Taleban militants bent on toppling the Western-backed government. -- AFP
