KABUL, (Reuters) – Up to 15 people, mainly foreigners, were killed in Afghanistan yesterday when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a popular Lebanese restaurant in the capital Kabul, police said.
Islamist Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the assault in the upscale Wazir Akbar Khan district, which hosts many embassies and restaurants catering for expatriates.
The United Nations said four of its staff were unaccounted for.
General Ayoub Salangi, an Afghan deputy interior minister, said between 13 and 15 people, mostly foreigners, were killed but their nationalities were not immediately clear.
A Taliban spokesman said that those killed were German nationals. In Berlin, the German foreign ministry said it could not confirm that Germans were involved.
The assault took place during a busy dinner time on a Friday evening when expatriates in Kabul tend to eat out. The heavily fortified diplomatic district also houses many wealthy Afghans and business people. Bursts of gunfire followed the attack.
“First there was a suicide attack near a restaurant for foreigners where a man detonated his explosives attached to his body, and then possibly one or two insurgents entered the restaurant,” one Afghan security source said.
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York that several employees of the United Nations had not been located.
“Four U.N. civilian personnel, who reportedly could have been present in close proximity to the scene of today’s attack in Kabul, still remain unaccounted for. The U.N. is making efforts to clarify the status of its personnel,” he said.
After the initial suicide explosion, two gunmen stormed into the restaurant and started shooting at people dinning there, security sources said, adding that foreign casualties had been taken to an international military camp in eastern Kabul.
In a nearby hospital, those wounded from the attack screamed and some people cried, pressing scarves against their faces to stifle sobs, as doctors administered treatment. One man, the son of an Afghan victim, kicked the wall as he howled in grief.
“One of the restaurant’s cooks was injured,” said Abdul Bashir, a doctor. “Two dead bodies have been taken to the morgue.”
