KABUL (AFP) - A suicide bomber blew himself up in Kabul's famous "Chicken Street" shopping haunt, wounding up to seven people, including three foreign peacekeepers in the boldest attack since the peaceful October 9 presidential election.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it chose to refrain from promised violence on polling day to protect "innocent Muslims" but was still targeting foreign troops.
"The suicide bomber had strapped hand grenades to his body and he exploded himself," Kabul police chief general Baba Jan said at the scene of the attack, a bustling street of carpet and antique shops popular with foreigners.
The bomber's grenades tore through the fabled street of carpet and antique shops in bright autumn sunshine at 3:30 pm (1100 GMT), just as Afghans began preparing for the sunset breaking of their Ramadan fast.
The narrow road was crowded with "hundreds of shoppers" when the bomber struck, witnesses said.
"I was just entering the street when the explosion happened and I saw hundreds of people fleeing," an eyewitness told AFP.
Three soldiers from the 9,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were injured, one of them seriously, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Poulain said.
"I don't know their gender or their nationality at this stage. They have been taken to an ISAF Hospital at Camp Warehouse," Poulain told AFP, referring to a base on the city's eastern outskirts.
For more than an hour the bomber's mutilated body lay uncovered on the sidewalk, his stomach ripped wide open. Half of one arm and a hand from his other were torn off in the blast and lay on the other side of the street several meters from his body.
Two unexploded hand grenades lay beside his body. Half of his trousers had been torn off in the blast. He appeared to be in his early 30s and had a short beard.
"I heard three almost simultaneous explosions and then saw a huge cloud of smoke," shopkeeper Sayeed Rahman told AFP.
"Later on I saw one foreign woman lying on the ground next to an Afghan beggar girl and some other people."
A police officer said the bomber had approached the ISAF soldiers dressed "like a beggar."
"He was very close to the ISAF soldiers and there was a small beggar girl and then the explosion happened," the police officer, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
He said the foreign woman and the girl were whisked away to hospital.
Spokesman for the ousted Islamic fundamentalist Taliban Abdul Latif Hakim said the extremists were behind the Chicken Street strike.
"We didn't attack the elections because we did not want to harm and kill innocent people, but the Americans and foreign troops are our enemies," Hakim told AFP by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.
"We will remain an enemy to this government, we don't care if it is elected or selected."
Fighters loyal to the former rulers, ousted three years ago by United States-led forces, have killed hundreds of people this year, including 12 electoral workers.
Interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said an Afghan man was also killed in the attack, but police had yet to confirm the fatality.
"Our latest information is that two people were killed, one of them was the attacker and the other was an Afghan man," Mashal told AFP.
10/23/2004 - 13:31 GMT - AFP