Suicide bomber blows up Kabul bus, kills dozens

KABUL, June 17 (Reuters) A Taliban suicide bomber blew up a police bus in the Afghan capital today, killing around 35 people in one of Kabul's deadliest explosions in recent months amid rising nationwide violence, police said.

The blast tore apart the bus, wrecked several other vehicles and scattered body parts. It was the fifth suicide bombing in Afghanistan in three days, all of them claimed by Taliban insurgents who want to overturn its Western-backed government and drive out foreign troops.

A police eyewitness at the scene, outside the Kabul police chief's headquarters, said he had seen the bomber leap on to the bus as it it was moving slowly away, its door wide open.

''It was a very, very successful suicide attack,'' a Taliban commander, Mullah Hayatullah Khan, told Reuters by satellite phone.

''We have plans for more successful attacks in future.'' The Taliban, ousted from power in 2001 by US-led forces, and their al Qaeda allies have adopted the tactics of Iraq's bloody insurgency to try to dispel the notion that government and foreign security forces are in control of the country.

Eighteen bodies, mostly police officers, and 10 wounded had been taken to nearby Jamhuriat Hospital, a doctor there said.

There was chaos at the hospital, where a crowd gathered to check if relatives and friends were among the dead and injured.

Doctors had set up a triage ward in the front yard of the hospital. The body of a police officer lay on the grass, shrouded in a sheet and surrounded by blood-soaked garments.

The bomb exploded during the morning rush hour, near the headquarters of Kabul's police chief, at a time when buses normally ferry police officers to their beats.

Afghan police featured heavily among the casualties, said Ali Shah Paktiawal, chief of the Kabul police's criminal branch.

It was the fifth suicide attack in Afghanistan in three days.

''More than 35 are killed,'' Paktiawal said. ''Police officers are among the dead.'' But an Interior Ministry official could not confirm the death toll, saying around 30 were dead or wounded.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for all the latest suicide bombs, which follow claims by Afghan, NATO and US coalition forces to have subdued the insurgents in an aggressive spring campaign against Taliban strongholds in the south and east.

On Friday and yesterday, there were four suicide attacks in the south, centre and north of the country, including a blast in Kabul yesterday. In these four previous attacks, at least 14 people were killed, including a Dutch soldier.

REUTERS NY PM1315