Bharat Rakshak

India today strongly condemned the terror attack at its embassy in Kabul and asserted that such "cowardly" acts would not deter it from fulfilling commitments to the government and people of Afghanistan.

External Affairs Ministry said casualties were feared among the Indian personnel and details are being ascertained.

"We are in touch with the Ambassador who is supervising arrangements for medical assistance," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said in a statement.

"The Government of India strongly condemns this cowardly terrorist attack on its diplomatic mission in Afghanistan," he said.

"Such acts of terror will not deter us from fulfilling our commitments to the Government and people of Afghanistan," the spokesman said.

About 3,000 Indians are working on various reconstruction and developmental projects in Afghanistan and they have often been subjected to attacks by Taliban.

By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and ALAN COWELL
Published: July 8, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber killed 28 people and injured 140 close to the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital Monday, the Health Ministry said.

The bomber rammed a car into two Indian diplomatic vehicles as they entered the gates of the embassy, close to the Afghan Interior Ministry, witnesses reported from the scene, saying the blast wrecked several other cars and spread human body parts and bloodstained scraps of clothing amid the debris.

The bombing followed an attack on police officers in Islamabad, the capital of neighboring Pakistan on Sunday and an earlier assault on a diplomatic mission when a suicide bomber attacked the Danish Embassy in Islamabad last month.

On April 27, President Hamid Karzai came under fire shortly before an annual military parade.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. The Taliban has threatened to escalate a campaign of suicide bombings in an attempt to topple the government and challenge the presence of some 60,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, including 34,000 Americans.

The foreign forces are battling a resurgent Taliban that has stepped up attacks recently.

The death toll among foreigners in June was the highest since the American-led invasion that toppled the Taliban in late 2001. The latest death among the foreign forces came on Monday when a Canadian soldier was killed, Agence France-Press reported.

The violence in Afghanistan has surged at the same time as deaths in Iraq have fallen. Among the American-led forces in the two countries, 46 service members were killed in Afghanistan in June, compared with 31 in Iraq, the second straight month in which combat deaths in Afghanistan exceeded those in Iraq.

Witnesses said the blast on Monday left two Indian Embassy vehicles wrecked, but the Afghan authorities said the Indian ambassador had not been killed. News reports from New Delhi said two Indian security guards had been killed. The dead included women and three children, apparently passers-by close to a market area in Kabul and people queuing for visas at the embassy.

Reuters reported that U.S. troops were among the security forces who arrived after the blast and cordoned off the area. India is seen as an ally of the Afghan government and is financing major development projects.

The bombing on Monday brought the death toll among Afghans to more than 50 in recent days. Local officials in the east of the country said Sunday that an American airstrike killed at least 27 civilians at a wedding party, most of them women and children and including the bride.

Officials of the American-led coalition disputed the report, saying that the airstrike killed militants and that there was no evidence of women and children at the scene.

The attack early Sunday in the Deh Bala district of Nangarhar Province was the second in which civilian deaths were reported.

President Karza, has ordered an investigation into a helicopter strike on Friday in Nuristan Province in which the provincial governor said 22 civilians had been killed.

The American military has also disputed that account, saying that only people who had been firing on coalition forces were hit.

The suicide bombing on Monday was among the bloodiest since February, 2008, when a bomber blew himself up in a large crowd gathered at a dogfighting event just outside Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. That attack killed about 80 people and wounded more than 90 in the country’s worst single bombing since 2001.

Abdul Waheed Wafa reported from Kabul and Alan Cowell from Paris.

Associated Press Writer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7634619

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A suicide car bomb exploded on a crowded street near the Indian Embassy in central Kabul during Monday morning rush hour.

The bomb went off near the Indian Embassy, which sits across the street from Afghanistan's Interior Ministry on a tree-lined street in the center of the Afghan capital. Dozens of Afghan men line up outside the embassy every morning to apply for visas to India.

KABUL (AFP) - A suicide bombing outside the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital Monday killed more than 40 people, many of them civilians waiting to collect visas, an interior ministry spokesman told reporters.

The bomber rammed an explosives-filled car into the gates of the Indian embassy, officials said.

The blast in the heart of Kabul scattered human flesh and severed limbs outside the embassy of India, one of Afghanistan's staunchest allies as the war-torn country battles an increasingly bloody Taliban insurgency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, one of the deadliest since the insurgency began, and the Afghan interior ministry said only that the explosion had been caused by a car bomb.

The Indian foreign ministry said two Indian paramilitary troopers guarding the embassy were among the dead. But an embassy official told AFP by phone that the Indian ambassador and other senior officials were not harmed.

"We are walking on rubble," the official said. "The embassy has been blown up badly."

Four Indian nationals were killed the suicide attack, Indian Ambassador Jayan Prasad said.

A defence attache of the rank of brigadier and an Indian Foreign Service officer were among those killed.

Ever since the MMS govt. has quietly suborned itself to the US's militrary and foreign policies,the terror attacks agaiants us have increased.Being perceived as a shareholder of US policies in Afghanistan,we are now paying the price for it.

New Delhi: Four Indians, including a senior Army officer posted as a military attache and an Indian Foreign Service officer, have been killed in the suicide attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul.

According to the latest reports 41 people have been killed and 141 injured in the attack including Indian military attache Brigadier R Mehta and press counsellor V Venkat Rao.

Rao is an IFS officer of 1990 batch. Both were travelling in a car together when the attack took place.

Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Jayant Prasad confirmed to CNN-IBN that four Indian's have been killed in the blast outside the Embassy.

"Two of them are guards and two are officers posted at the Indian Embassy. I condemn the attack on the Embassy, " Prasad said.

Let me clarify.Ever since we opened a "strategic partnership" with the US,that too very publicly ,with joint military exercises,etc.,there were open warnings from Al Q and the Taliban about the emerging Indo-US-Israel alliance and warnings that India would be attacked as a result.This was some time ago.With these warnings made openly,plus the numerous almost daily attacks made against US/allied targets in Iraq and Afghanistan,even in Pakistan against Pak targets,our embassy in Kabul should've had better protection or should'bve been relocated.You need to live/work in a veritable fortress when faced with such suicide vehicle attacks,where huge amounts of explosives are carried.In fact,ALL Indian embassies,high commissions,consulates,etc.,worldwide should be strengthened/fortified.We are now perceived by the Islamist terrorists as being another poodle of Bush & co.,our PM's determination to keep his promise to Dubya Bush only highlighting the relationship!

The issue is not the debate about our pro-US or independent foreign policy, but the hard, inescapable truth that we are now perceived bu the ungodly as being firmly in the US camp and therefore we must take all measures to protect ourselves and our missions.

Secondly,I am one who has always said (in previous posts) that our need is to strengthen the Karzai govt. and see that it survives so that the Taliban and Al Q can be destroyed or at least marginalised.I have never called for any disengagement from Afghanistan of Indian support.However,if you read the roster,you will find many other nations supporting Karzai to the hilt morally,militarily and economically,without their missions and personnel being targeted.They keep a lower profile and use more covert assistance than overt ones.Discretion as they say is the better part of valour.

The Indian engagement in Afghanistan is vastly different from say an Oz engagement or even a US engagement there. Afghanistan had been under Indian sphere of influence until the 80s. The emergence of Taliban took it decisively away from us. Afghanistan is our immediate neighbourhood and we need to be present there strongly. Unlike other European or American or even some Asian nations, we will be there in Afghanistan indefinitely. We need to influence their policies. We cannot be cowed down by these Pakistani/Taliban/Punjabi Talibani threats. The current suicide attack is a combined operation of these three entities.

However, we need to be extremely security conscious there and enormously fortify our position there.

India also condemned the "cowardly terrorists' attack"....
India condemns the "cowardly terrorists' attack". ....
I also condemn the "cowardly terrorists' attack". ... .

The ritual begins: Sing in unison Ragaa Malhar, express regret, bla bla bla and order the regular chest beating ritual.

For once renounce "Kim Kartavya Vimudha", and "do the Kartavya" which is to kick arse of the terrorist & their supporters; interdict & interfere. Use 1000 Crore worth of the otherwise wasted expenditure on Defense Budget, to some good use. Show that those teeth are not the elephant tusk, only for pomp, show and parade.

Disgusting impotence.

I look forward to Pradhan Mantri MM Singh's "can't sleep in the night" comment.

With every attack against Indians in Afghanistan we must double our numbers there.
this is the only solution.

The blast specifically targeted the Military Attache's car. Taliban thugs are unlikely to have such detailed intelligence capabilities. Clearly this is an ISI operation. Given that ISI's recent agent of choice for such attacks is the Haqqani network, that's where I'd be looking for the mastermind.

The blast specifically targeted the Military Attache's car. Taliban thugs are unlikely to have such detailed intelligence capabilities. Clearly this is an ISI operation. Given that ISI's recent agent of choice for such attacks is the Haqqani network, that's where I'd be looking for the mastermind.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing and said it was carried out by militants trying to rupture the friendship between Afghanistan and India.

The Interior Ministry, meanwhile, hinted that the attack was carried out with help from Pakistan's intelligence service, saying that "terrorists have carried out this attack in coordination and consultation with some of the active intelligence circles in the region."

In Delhi, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said the attack would not deter the mission from "fulfilling our commitments to the government and people of Afghanistan."

One thing I do not understand, in a place like Afghanistan you have so many targets. Basically the whole pantheon of infidels is available along with some muslims who are conspiring against real muslims along with kaffirs.

So why only target Indian. It seems like we are the softest target out there thanks to the UPA govt.

Mirwais khan, Jalalabad, says: Dear Friends, It is no doubt that this coward act was commited by ISI of Pakistan which is number one terror Organisation in the face of the earth. Paki many times expressed their unhappiness with very close and very friendly relatioshship between Afghanistan and Great India. India by closing its embassy and any other part of the world would make pakis happy because they don't like too see indians in Afghanistan. I think India should show its power and thighen its relatioshship with countries like Afganistan which is in frontline of the war with Pakistan and its paki traind islamic terrorists. on the blast dead 4 indians and 36 afghans. my heart goes to thier families, friends and to both indian and afghan nation. Long live India and Afghanistan Death to terrorists and those country which support it.

Gaurav Shukla, New Delhi, says: The consecutive suicide attacks in Islamabad and on Indian embassy in Kabul clearly show how much SAARC countries are inflicted with terrorism. The countries in subcontinent have always been soft targets for terrorists. No stringent laws, poor condition of intelligence and lack of active joint mechanisms between nations in Indian subcontinent have been the favouring factors for rising incidents. Although India and Pakistan set up a joint mechanism on terrorism, and similarly Pakistan also has a Pakistan-Afghan Accord to Obliterate Terrorism, but there are no results. The individual mechanisms are of no help in war on terrorism, we clearly need a combined forum to talk and find solutions and SAARC is that forum. During the 12th and 13th SAARC summits, extreme emphasis was laid upon greater cooperation between the SAARC members to fight terrorism, but the countries need to come out with a suitable framework in upcoming summit at Kandy, Sri Lanka.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the likes of "Gaurav Shukla"