International Forces Investigate Kabul Car Bomb

Compiled from International Security Assistance Force Joint Command News Releases

May 18, 2010 - Six International Security Assistance Force servicemembers and numerous Afghan civilians were killed and several others were wounded in Kabul, Afghanistan, this morning when a vehicle bomb detonated near an international convoy, military officials said.

The suicide bomb exploded on Darulaman Road, where several civilian vehicles were traveling near the International Security Assistance Forces convoy. The injured were evacuated to medical facilities.

"ISAF strongly condemns the attack on civilians and ISAF forces," said German Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, an ISAF spokesman. "This sort of desperate brutality and aggression reminds us of the pessimism of an enemy who seek to kill the innocent and to stop the progress necessary for a better Afghanistan. This will not deter us from our mission of securing a better future for this country."

The explosion also damaged five ISAF vehicles and more than a dozen civilian vehicles.

ISAF is assisting Afghan security forces in securing the area and investigating the incident.

In other news from Afghanistan:

-- An international patrol in the Tarin Kot district of Uruzgan province yesterday found three rifles, a rocket-propelled grenade fuel cell, two recoilless rifle rounds, a machine gun and a pair of binoculars.

-- An Afghan-international security patrol confiscated 50 pounds of wet opium while conducting a search of a compound in Helmand province's Nad-e Ali district yesterday.

-- In Logar province's Baraki Barak district yesterday, a combined patrol found a homemade bomb consisting of four recoilless rifle rounds and a mortar and another device made with recoilless rifle rounds and homemade explosives. An explosive ordnance disposal team destroyed the bombs.

-- A combined patrol in Helmand's Now Zad district yesterday found and destroyed 150 pounds of a substance believed to be ammonium nitrate, a banned fertilizer that can be used to make explosives.

-- In the Kunduz district of Kunduz province yesterday, Afghan children led an ISAF patrol to an 82 mm high-explosive mortar round. The round was destroyed.

No Afghan civilians were harmed in these operations, officials said.