KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide car bomber plowed into rush-hour traffic on a commercial boulevard in Kabul on Thursday morning, killing at least four people and wounding 17, the police and hospital authorities said.
Afghan police at the scene of the suicide car bomb.The bomber was apparently aiming at a passing convoy of foreign military personnel, the Interior Ministry said in a statement, but several witnesses said there were no security forces, either Afghan or foreign, in the immediate vicinity.
The explosion occurred about 150 yards from a major traffic circle and a heavily guarded entrance to an access road leading to the American Embassy, raising speculation that the bomber may have intended to attack there but detonated his device prematurely.
Within minutes of the attack, the victims had been evacuated, and government investigators had begun sifting through the wreckage. The blast sprayed body parts and pieces of the car in every direction, and shattered windows of nearby buildings.
But more than an hour later, the bloodied, twisted body of the suicide bomber still lay in the street, about 50 yards from the blast site, where only the mangled front end of his car remained.
According to witnesses, the bomber's car had been weaving through traffic and then hit a pedestrian and several cars before exploding.
"I thought he was drunk," said Salih Muhammad, 35, a street cleaner who was part of a nine-man crew working that stretch of road when the attack occurred. "Then there was this huge explosion."
Qari Ayob, 37, the owner of a small store near the blast site, said he was in his shop at the time. "At first I felt a huge flame and then heard a very big explosion," he said. "I felt as if the flame came into my shop. Then a darkness came and it blinded me for a while."
Two members of the cleaning crew were wounded in the blast, and their co-workers took them to a nearby hospital.
Mr. Muhammad stood with another street cleaner outside the emergency room waiting for updates on their colleagues. His hands and orange work clothes were stained with the blood of one of his colleagues, whom he had carried from the street.
"This is life in Afghanistan, and we're accustomed to it," said the second street cleaner, Muhammad Sabir, 49.
Noor Agah Akramzada, director of the hospital, said his staff had received 10 people who were wounded and one body. A handwritten notice taped to the wall of the hospital listed the names and ages of the wounded. Officials at a military hospital in the neighborhood said they were treating at least seven other victims.
Mr. Ayob, the shopkeeper, said that he felt lucky because at the time of day the explosion occurred, he usually stood in front of his shop warming up in the sunshine. But on Thursday morning he did not.
As he spoke, his employees were cleaning up glass from his shop's shattered window. The store remained open for business. "There is no alternative," Mr. Ayob said. "This is my job. I need to continue."
