Bomber kills at least 11 on Afghan bus

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up alongside a bus in Kabul on Tuesday, killing at least 11 victims including policemen and civilians, Afghan officials said. It was the second such attack in the capital in four days.

The front of the bus was blown apart by the blast at the start of the morning rush hour on a narrow road in a shopping district in the city's western outskirts.

Shop windows were shattered and blood and body parts strewn on the ground. A police officer at the scene said women were among the dead and he had picked up the bodies of a number of children.

"The report we have indicates that so far 12 police have been killed and 15 wounded," said a police official who declined to be named.

Later, the Interior Ministry said 11 people - six police and five civilians, three of them children - had been killed.

Police had noticed the bomber as he tried to board the bus, the ministry said in a statement. He was shot and detonated his explosives outside the bus, it said.

A Taliban spokesman said the radical Islamic movement, which is fighting to topple the government and drive Western troops out of Afghanistan, was behind the attack.

"They are criminals. They don't have any respect for humanity," Health Minister Mohammad Amin Fatemi told reporters at the site. "Islam is totally against suicide. Islam is against the killing of human beings like this ... We can expect more attacks."