5 US Troops Among 18 Dead in Kabul Blast

A Taliban suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy in Kabul today, killing six of its servicemembers, five of them American, officials said. Twelve Afghan civilians also died—many in a gruesome scene as a public bus in rush hour traffic was ripped apart. “I got to the scene right afterward, and people were calling, ‘Help me, help me,’” an ambulance driver tells the New York Times. “There were body parts everywhere."

Forty-seven others were wounded in the first major attack on Kabul since February when suicide bombers struck two small hotels. Police have publicized a number of arrests of would-be bombers since then, but today's bombing was a reminder that the city's defenses can still be penetrated. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told the AP that the bomber was a man from Kabul and his car was packed with 1,650 pounds of explosive.
(More Kabul stories.)