Suicide bomber kills dozens in Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Since winter, the Taliban had been promising a spring offensive. It didn't come. Instead, NATO and US forces have pounded the group's positions, and killed its senior leadership.

But with summer well under way in Afghanistan, the insurgent group showed yesterday that it is still capable of mounting one of the most devastating insurgent strikes the country has seen.

In the single deadliest suicide attack since the Taliban was ousted from power in 2001, a bomber hopped on a packed bus in downtown Kabul and triggered his explosives, killing 24 to 35 people and wounding dozens more. A purported commander for the Taliban asserted responsibility for the attack.

The blast could be heard for miles, and it sheared the top off of the bus, which had been ferrying police academy recruits and trainers to class.

Hours later, three service members in the US-led coalition and their Afghan interpreter died in the southern province of Kandahar when a roadside bomb detonated near their vehicle. The nationalities of the service members were withheld until their families could be notified.

Coalition and Afghan troops responded with airstrikes against a compound suspected of housing Al Qaeda militants in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan, and seven children were believed to be among the dead, the coalition said today. The rising overall number of civilian casualties has weakened the Afghan government, some observers say.

The Kabul bus attack raised fresh fears that the Taliban is acquiring more sophisticated weaponry with which to wage war against the Afghan government and its international backers. Security forces are concerned that the Taliban is adopting strategies and technologies from insurgents in Iraq, a ominous sign even as the radical Islamic movement continues to take heavy losses in battles fought in the countryside.

"If you're in the terrorist business, it makes sense to look around at what works elsewhere ," said Major John Thomas, spokesman for the separate NATO-led force, which patrols much of the country. He said a NATO counter explosives team will be combing through the wreckage.

The attack in Kabul occurred at the height of the morning rush hour on a busy street near the Afghan capital's police headquarters. In addition to destroying the police bus, it also obliterated a van filled with civilians. "It was a horrible sound," said Qurban Ali, a 38-year-old baker whose shop is down the street from the blast site. "Everything around me was suddenly covered with black smoke, and glass from the bus was flying toward me. Thank God I am safe."

Yesterday's attack was the fifth suicide bombing in Afghanistan in the past three days.