KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber killed 14 people on Tuesday including 10 foreigners, most of whom worked as flight crew members under contract with the United States government, officials said. The attack brought to at least 28 the number of deaths attributed to unrest sweeping the Muslim world as a result of an amateurish video parodying the Prophet Muhammad.
A spokesman for an Afghan insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, claimed responsibility for the bombing and said it was carried out by an 18-year-old woman.
“We claim credit for the attack by a martyrdom-seeking mujahid, an 18-year-old girl named Fatima, from Kabul, and the attack has been conducted in response to the film insulting the Prophet Muhammad and Islam,” said Zubir Siddiqi, the spokesman, reached by telephone.
In the attack, the suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives head-on into a minibus carrying foreign workers on the Airport Road, killing all 12 people aboard and two people on the road, according to the police.
The United States Embassy here said in a statement that many of the foreign victims were personnel of a private company providing services to the United States Agency for International Development and other organizations in Afghanistan. American officials confirmed that at least eight had been employed by a South African aviation charter company, ACS/Balmoral, working under contract for USAID as pilots and crew flying planes in what is colloquially known as “Embassy Air” to provincial capitals in Afghanistan. A spokeswoman for ACS/Balmoral, Candice Teubes, said all eight were believed to be South African citizens.
The authorities in Afghanistan provided conflicting accounts. An aide to Gen. Mohammad Ayoub Salangi, the police chief of Kabul, said at least six of the 10 dead foreigners were South Africans, five men and a woman; one was a Filipino, and the others’ nationalities were uncertain. Spokesmen for the French and Russian Embassies said they did not believe any of the victims were from their countries, contradicting earlier police accounts that the dead included French and Russian citizens.
So let me get this straight.... a suicide bomber blows up a van full of South African & French people in retaliation for a movie that was made by one person who happens to live in America? America did not make the movie. France did not make the movie. South Africa did not make the movie. ONE PERSON made the movie! (well, possibly a group of a few individuals). Simply amazing....
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