Blast kills eight South Africans, four others in Kabul

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)—A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a mini-bus carrying foreign aviation workers to the airport in the Afghan capital early Tuesday, killing at least 12 people including eight South Africans. A militant group said the attack aimed to avenge an anti-Islam film that ridicules the Prophet Muhammad.

The powerful early morning blast was the first in Kabul since a video clip of the film was posted on the Internet last week, sparking angry protests across the Muslim world including in Afghanistan. It was also the second—and deadliest—attack that Afghan militants have said they carried out as revenge strikes in response to the film.

Haroon Zarghoon, a spokesman for the Islamist militant group Hizb-i-Islami, claimed responsibility for the dawn attack in telephone call to The Associated Press. He said it was carried out by a 22-year-old woman named Fatima. Suicide bombings carried out by women are extremely rare in Afghanistan—and few if any women drive cars.

"The anti-Islam film hurt our religious sentiments and we cannot tolerate it," Zarghoon said. "There had been several young men who wanted to take revenge but Fatima also volunteered and we wanted to give a chance to a girl for the attack to tell the world we cannot ignore any anti-Islam attack."

Zarghoon warned of more attacks against foreigners working for NATO and said Hizb-i-Islami had been scouting targets since a video clip of the film was posted on the Internet last week. The bombing was a worrisome escalation of violence in the capital, where most attacks are usually blamed on the Haqqani network—a Pakistan-based militant group affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

"Foreign troops are fighting against Afghans and foreign civilians are tasked to spy for them. They all are our enemy and will be our target," Zarghoon told AP from an unknown location.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, which he said killed eight South Africans, a Kyrgyzstani and three Afghans. Some of the dead were working for a South African Aviation company called ACS/BalmOral, which said in a statement that they were notifying the families of those killed.

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said 11 Afghan civilians were wounded, and that tests were under way to determine whether the suicide bomber was a woman.