By empty (11/28/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
A suicide attacker rammed a car bomb into a police vehicle in western Afghanistan, killing a policeman and wounding three civilians, officials said. The attacker drove the car into a police jeep on the outskirts of Herat city as counterterrorism police followed him suspecting he might be planning an attack, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP on Tuesday. \"One police officer was martyred and one was wounded in the suicide blast,\" said Bashary.
A suicide attacker rammed a car bomb into a police vehicle in western Afghanistan, killing a policeman and wounding three civilians, officials said. The attacker drove the car into a police jeep on the outskirts of Herat city as counterterrorism police followed him suspecting he might be planning an attack, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP on Tuesday. \"One police officer was martyred and one was wounded in the suicide blast,\" said Bashary. The attacker\'s body was blown to pieces, he said. Three civilians were also wounded, western Afghanistan deputy police director Ali Khan said. He said the attacker wanted to enter the city for \"destructive attempts\" and struck the vehicle as police were trying stop him at a checkpost. Human flesh littered the road, which links the city with its airport, an AFP reporter said. The force of the blast blew a deep hole into the tarmac, he said. Police quickly sealed the area. Bashary blamed the attack on \"enemies of peace and stability\", a term often used by Afghan officials to refer to the hardline Taliban movement that has been waging an insurgency since being driven from power in late 2001. The suicide attack was the fourth in insurgency-hit Afghanistan in as many days and came as NATO leaders were to meet to consider the alliance\'s operations against the Taliban. On Saturday an attack aimed at soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in the province of Logar near Kabul wounded two civilians. The following day a man blew himself up in restaurant in eastern Paktika province, killing 15 people in one of the biggest suicide attacks in weeks. And on Monday an attack in the southern city of Kandahar killed two Canadian soldiers and 15 camels. The Taliban insurgency, which makes regular use of suicide and roadside bombings, has been the bloodiest this year, claiming 3,700 lives -- four times more than last year, according to an official report. Most of the dead are rebels. (AFP)