A female suicide bomber killed at least 12 people, including eight South Africans, in the Afghan capital Kabul today.
Afghan militants claimed responsibility for the attack on the minivan carrying foreign workers, saying it was retaliation for a film mocking the Prophet Muhammad.
Haroon Zarghoon, a spokesman for the Islamist militant group Hizb-i-Islami, said it was carried out by a 22-year-old woman named Fatima. Suicide bombings carried out by women are extremely rare in Afghanistan - and few if any women drive cars.
"The anti-Islam film hurt our religious sentiments and we cannot tolerate it," Zarghoon said. "There had been several young men who wanted to take revenge but Fatima also volunteered and we wanted to give a chance to a girl for the attack to tell the world we cannot ignore any anti-Islam attack."
A witness at the scene said he was waiting for a bus to go to work at 6.45am when he saw a small white car ram into the minibus. “The explosion was so powerful and loud that I could not hear anything for 10 minutes,” said Abdullah Shah.
Eight of the dead were South Africans believed to be working for an aviation company based at Rand Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa's International Affairs Ministry spokesman Nelson Kgwete said.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said that four Afghans also were killed and another 11 Afghan civilians were wounded.
The attack will raise fears that anger over the film will feed into deteriorating security as the United States and other Western countries try to protect their forces from a rash of so-called insider attacks by Afghan colleagues.
A short film made with private funds in the United States and posted on the internet has ignited days of demonstrations in the Arab world, Africa, Asia and in some Western countries.
In violence blamed on the film last week, the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in an attack in Benghazi and US and other foreign embassies were stormed in cities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East by furious Muslims. At least nine other people were killed.
Thousands of protesters clashed with police in Kabul the previous day, burning cars and hurling rocks at security forces in the worst outbreak of violence since February rioting over the inadvertent burning of Korans by US soldiers.
The protesters in Kabul and several other Asian cities have vented their fury over the film at the United States, blaming it for what they see as an attack on Islam.
Agencies