[Quqnoos] A suicide bomber attacked Kandahar airfield Monday, killing 2 and wounding a dozen, including four Afghan soldiers The incident occurred at about 7 am on Monday morning at the front gate of Kandahar airport, approximately 30 km south-eastern of the provincial capital, Kandahar city, a top police official said. Health status of four of the wounded people is reported critical.The area is cordoned off by US and Canadian troops, stationed in Kandahar province, to probe the car wreckage and the powerful blast, a witness said.
Brig Gen Safiullah Hakim, police chief in southern Afghan region further said the attack also damaged five other civilian vehicles parked nearby the blast scene. Quqnoos' Mohammad Masumi in Kandahar terms it the first-ever suicide attack on Kandahar airfield -- a crowded Afghan airport with a number of domestic flights a day due to the risky road journey to southern Afghanistan. International and Afghan troops guard the airfield in Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban.
A militants' Web Site, quoted a purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who accepted tge Taliban involvement behind the attack on the airfield. The attack was carried out by a Taliban militant, Abdul Hassan, the spokesman further said in the article. The Taliban spokesman claims that 16 Afghan and foreign troops have been killed in the blast.
Afghan officials in Kandahar dismissed the claim.