Female car bomber attacks van in Kabul

A female suicide car bomber attacked a van in Kabul yesterday, killing 12 people including eight South Africans, in an assault that insurgents said was revenge for an anti-Islam film made in America.

The bombing on a highway leading to Kabul inter-national airport was the second suicide attack in the heavily fortified city in 10 days, reviving questions about stability as Nato accelerates a troop withdrawal and hands over to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

It came as officers revealed that Western troops are scaling back joint operations with Afghans after 51 Nato soldiers were shot dead this year by their local colleagues, a setback for the war strategy that focuses on training Afghans to take over.

An AFP photographer saw at least six bodies lying among the wreckage of a gutted minivan, and another vehicle destroyed by flames still burning in the middle of the highway, with debris flung all around. The South African Foreign Ministry said eight of its citizens working for a private company were among the dead.

The Afghan presidency later confirmed that three Afghans, believed to include the bus driver and an interpreter, and one citizen from Kyrgyzstan were also killed. Eleven other people were wounded.

Afghanistan’s second largest insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, claimed responsibility, saying it was carried out by a woman to avenge the Innocence of Muslims film, which has sparked a week of furious anti-US riots .

“The bombing was in retaliation for the insult to our Prophet,” spokesman Zubair Sidiqi said in a telephone call to AFP from an undisclosed location.

It is extremely rare for the faction to claim a suicide attack in Afghanistan. It is also rare for women, few of whom drive in Afghanistan, to carry out suicide attacks.