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Terror Attacks in Asia

Bomb Kills 16 Near US Embassy In Afghanistan

One of the largest car bombs in Kabul in recent years has killed two American servicemen and at least 14 others amid increasing violence in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a string of unrelated terrorist attacks across Asia killed another 46 people on Friday -- just as the UN struggled to find a definition for "terrorism."

A suicide car bomb exploded near the United States embassy in Kabul on Friday and disrupted a convoy of US military vehicles. At least 16 people were killed, according to military officials and witnesses, including two American soldiers. At least 23 people were injured.

Witnesses said the attacker detonated his bomb-packed Corolla next to an American Humvee and blew the armored vehicle in half, sending pieces of human bodies, US uniforms, Muslim prayer caps, and other clothing into the trees. Windows shattered throughout downtown Kabul. A plume of smoke rose over the city.

The bombing came three days ahead of the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States, and one day before the Sept. 9, 2001, assassination of anti-Taliban mujahideen leader Ahmad Shah Masood. The bomb went off about 50 meters from the square in Kabul named after Masood, which leads to the main gate of the fortified embassy compound.

Taliban rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, but didn't name their target. An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw the body of an elderly woman who had been sitting with her granddaughter in a yard outside a Soviet-era apartment building. The windows had been blown out from the explosion.

"My mother just went to the park for some fresh air with my daughter when the explosion happened," said the woman's son, Farid Wahidi, 40. "Shrapnel hit her in the chest and killed her."

Taliban Resurgent

Analysts say the Taliban and their allies are at their strongest since a US-led coalition ousted the group in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 2,300 people have died in fighting and bombings this year, and some officials say violence in Afghanistan is now worse than the violence in Iraq. NATO forces launched their largest offensive against the Taliban since 2001 on Saturday.

NATO leaders want certain countries in the peacekeeping force -- like Germany -- to send more troops and equipment to the volatile southern provinces. "Those allies who perhaps are doing less in Afghanistan should think: Shouldn't we do more?" said NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels. "… There certainly are a number of allies who can do more."

He didn't single out any nation, but diplomats say Germany, which leads the NATO mission in the relatively calm north, is under pressure to offer reinforcements to British, Canadian, and Dutch forces in the south.

Bloody Friday in Asia

A series of unrelated terrorist attacks across Asia made Friday an especially grim day in the war on terrorism. Assaults on Shiite pilgrims in Iraq, a sectarian bombing in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, and anti-Muslim bombings in India killed a total of at least 46 people.

The deaths in Iraq also appeared to be sectarian, as opposed to anti-Western. Three shots from a mortar in the town of Musayyib, south of Baghdad, landed on a procession of Shiite pilgrims on their way to Karbala, where tens of thousands of Shiites are expected to gather on Saturday for a religious festival. Three people were killed and 22 people injured. Many Shiites walk across Iraq to Karbala to observe the mid-month festival of Shaaban.

The United Nations, meanwhile, released a long-awaited counterterrorism strategy -- the results of a year-long effort to to unify its 192 member governments in a global front against terrorism. Some of the more concrete ideas included a world database on biological-weapon attacks and clamping down on counterfeit travel documents. But the member nations failed to arrive at a global definition of "terrorism."

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