Large Explosion Hits Kabul as Hagel Visits - Wall Street Journal

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and NATHAN HODGE KABUL—A Taliban suicide bomber killed at least nine Afghans at the entrance to the Ministry of Defense in Kabul on Saturday morning, just as U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel visited the Afghan capital to discuss ending America's longest foreign war. The bomber, Afghan officials on the scene said, approached on bicycle the ministry compound's gate on a busy riverside street and detonated his device in the middle of Afghan civilians lining up for security checks. The bomb, while lethal, was relatively small: the compound's outer wall was pockmarked with shrapnel but withstood the blast. Mr. Hagel was not at the ministry when the attack occurred, and he continued his visit's schedule, traveling to a U.S. base outside Kabul later in the day. The Taliban, who claimed responsibility for the blast, said the bombing, carried out by a man named Mohammed Kandahari, constituted "a message" for Mr. Hagel. Reuters U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, left, walked with U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, Commander of the International Security Force, in Kabul. Afghan insurgents have frequently staged attacks to coincide with high-profile visits by U.S. officials. Last March, an Afghan man tried to ram a stolen vehicle into the group of senior officers greeting then-defense secretary Leon Panetta at the Camp Bastion military base in Helmand province. And last August, an insurgent rocket attack on the Bagram Air Field damaged the C-17 cargo plane that had transported Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesman Dawlat Waziri said nine Afghan civilians were killed in Saturday's blast, and 14 people—including two ministry employees—were wounded. A military hospital official in Kabul spoke of a higher toll of 10 dead and 17 injured. The dead included a child, he said. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied in a statement that any civilian casualties had occurred because, he said, no civilians are allowed that close to the ministry's gate. "The enemy wants to accuse us of causing civilian casualties because they want to make our attacks look worthless, and to defame us," he said. In fact, the ministry's gate sits on a major road in central Kabul. The people lining up at the gate at this time in the morning are usually civilian visitors to the ministry, such as contractors, relatives of military personnel or people who need to get official paperwork there. Passersby were also caught up in the blast. A silver Toyota Corolla, covered with bits of charred flesh on its shattered windshield, tried to drive away from the scene. "Thanks be to God, I survived the bomb," said one of its dazed passengers, Mohammed Hanif. In the busy market across the Kabul river from the ministry gate, the explosion shattered store windows and sent crowds fleeing in panic. Abdel Mubarez, who runs a restaurant facing the ministry across the river, said he heard a single gunshot prior to the explosion, and then dove for cover as more gunfire rang out. One of his windows was blown out by shrapnel. "I was scared—everybody gets scared in this kind of situation, he said. Within a few hours of the attack, fire trucks hosed off the blood and the flesh from the road, reopening it to traffic. Mr. Hagel arrived in Kabul on Friday evening on his first trip to Afghanistan since being sworn in as defense secretary. This was his first stop in Afghanistan since the summer of 2008, when he accompanied then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on a congressional delegation. Officials billed the trip as both an opportunity for Mr. Hagel to see the situation in Afghanistan first-hand, as well as to acknowledge the more than 66,000 U.S. troops still serving in the country. Mr. Hagel's visit also comes at an uncertain moment for U.S.-Afghan relations. The Obama administration is still weighing how many troops it may keep in the country after the withdrawal of most international forces by the end of 2014. Negotiations over the enduring troop presence have been complicated by Afghanistan's demands to curtail immunity for U.S. troops. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also caught U.S. officials off guard with demands for immediate withdrawal of U.S. special-operations troops from Wardak province, a key staging area for insurgent attacks on the capital. Underscoring the mistrust and tension between Afghans and foreign troops, Mr. Hagel's arrival late Friday coincided with the military's announcement that gunmen in Afghan military uniform had turned their weapons on coalition troops, killing a civilian contractor. —Habib Khan Totakhil and Dion Nissenbaum contributed to this article. Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com via Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFSktuUOiQ8g3E82u-nxzDMlqiqEQ&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628804578349340871539804.html

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