17 January,2009 04:12 PM IST | | AP
A suicide car bomb attack on Saturday on a heavily guarded road between the German Embassy and a US military base in the Afghan capital killed four people including two American troops, officials said.
Officials said that 23 Afghans and 12 US personnel were wounded in the attack. Taliban claimed responsibility and said the bomber targeted German military personnel.
Firefighters and soldiers doused burning vehicles in the street near the base with water. Afghan security personnel and US soldiers carried a US service member out of a window near the blast. It was not clear whether soldier was dead or alive.
A US military statement said two service members were killed and 12 others wounded in the 9:45 am attack. Two Afghan civilians died in the blast and 23 were wounded, said Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the Defense Ministry spokesman.
The German Embassy shares a small, two-lane road with Camp Eggers, a US base that serves as the headquarters for soldiers training Afghan police and army personnel. Dozens of armed Afghan security personnel guard the street, and blast walls of concrete and sand-filled mesh-wire boxes line the road.
"It did not breach the wall (of the base)," said Lt Col Chris Kubik, a US military spokesman. "It was fairly close but I can't tell you if they were targeting us or not."
A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin said 'some personnel' were wounded in the blast, but he did not give numbers. He said they had no reports of deaths.
