WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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Taliban suicide attack kills 17 in Afghan capital
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-08 20:20
"Dust was everywhere. People were shouting," Najibullah said. "You couldn't see their faces because there was so much dust." His white clothes were covered in blood after helping load four injured onto ambulances. AP Television News footage showed local residents and soldiers pulling a charred, severed leg out of a destroyed vehicle. Others carried an apparently lifeless body on a stretcher to an ambulance. On another stretcher, a man lay face down, one arm hanging downward, his left leg covered in blood. Two United Nations vehicles were near the blast and one was badly damaged, spokesman Dan McNorton confirmed. Both vehicles had only a driver inside, and neither was wounded. The UN typically uses armored vehicles in Kabul that are designed to withstand such attacks. One injured man said the force of the explosion threw him into the air. Mohammad Arif said he was leaving the Indian Embassy when the blast tossed him against a concrete barrier. The left side of his head was bleeding as he spoke. The blast occurred a day after the Afghanistan war reached its eighth anniversary and as President Barack Obama considered a request for between 10,000 and 40,000 additional troops prepared by the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Separately Thursday, French Defense Minister Herve Morin announced the death of a French marine killed in an IED attack on Sept 4.
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