AFGHANISTAN - Oct 8 - 17 Die In Kabul Bomb Attack.

A car packed with explosives blew up beside the Indian Embassy on Oct 8 morning, leaving 17 people dead in what India's foreign secretary said was a direct attack on the embassy compound, the second in two years. Afghans walk through the debris of a building damaged by a blast that hit Kabul, Afghanistan, on Oct 8. The blast appeared to be similar in pattern to the earlier attack, in July 2008, in which a car bomber detonated at the embassy gates around the same time. American intelligence officials concluded within weeks that Pakistan's intelligence agency had helped to plan that attack. Pakistan denied any involvement. India is Pakistan's archrival, and militant groups once nurtured by Pakistan's intelligence service have struck at Indian targets, most recently last year in Mumbai. But it was too early to tell who was behind Oct 8's bombing, which served as a reminder of the reach of Afghanistan's insurgency. The heavily guarded area was reopened to traffic only recently, having being closed for months after the previous bombing, which killed 54. Indian authorities said no embassy staff members were hurt, but three guards outside had been wounded. The Associated Press cited a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, as saying that the Taliban had carried out the attack. But American commanders say the Taliban here are a set of related insurgencies that crisscross regions and countries, and it was unclear which particular group was responsible. American officials believe that Jalaluddin Haqqani, an Afghan militia commander who battled Soviet troops during the 1980s and has had a long and complicated relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency, was responsible for the 2008 attack. He is based in the mountains of western Pakistan and has sometimes-strained relations with the Pakistani Taliban. The bombing comes at a delicate moment. President Obama is deciding whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, as the top military commander here, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, has advised. Some in the administration argue that the Taliban do not pose a threat to the United States, while military commanders argue that a Taliban takeover here would open space for Al Qaeda to carry out more attacks. Oct 8's bombing occurred around 8:30 a.m., when a man driving a sport utility vehicle slowed down near a side wall of the embassy, said Sayed Abdul Ghafar, a senior police official in Kabul. Soon after, the driver detonated his explosives, partly destroying a guard tower and an outer protective wall. The American Embassy condemned the attack. "There is no justification for this kind of senseless violence", it said in a statement. In a grimly familiar pattern, most of the dead were ordinary Afghans, many of them merchants at a market that had been refurbished in recent months. Shop owners swept broken glass and crushed geraniums into small piles on the sidewalk. Muhibullah, a print shop owner, said the blast was so powerful he felt it in his chest. A thick cloud of dust settled over the area, darkening his shop. An older man who had been wounded stumbled in the front door and walked between the printing machines, dazed. He didn't know what he was doing", the print shop owner said. "We told him, You've been injured.' " Mr. Muhibullah who like many Afghans uses only one name said he had hoped that security had improved when city authorities reopened the road in front of his shop. But now he wants to move. "These places", he said, pointing to the Interior Ministry across the street and the embassy, "are using the people as their shelter". Reporting was contributed by Jim Yardley from New Delhi, Jason Tanner and Sangar Rahimi from Kabul, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan.