Bombs overshadow Kabul roses

Bombs overshadow Kabul roses

We were on our way to a press conference that Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, was to give. We had just been through the first checkpoint and were making our way to the next one.

I was admiring the roses on the presidential grounds - they were big with vibrant colors and I was thinking 'I must blog about Afghan roses'. But my thoughts were interrupted by a large boom.

We knew right away, this was a big one - and it was.

It happened far away from where we were, but we heard it very loudly and so we rushed back to the office.

As always, reports on the incident were confusing initially. We drove to the Darul Aman area in west Kabul.
 
The attack happened just on the edge of the capital, but in an area where there are many government buildings.

It targeted a convoy of foreign troops in an unmarked car.

Six troops died but the number of dead among innocent Afghan civilians was double.

Ironically, the Darul Aman palace was perched on a hill overlooking the bomb site. A once neocolonial, beautiful palace built by King Amanullah Khan in 1920, it is now reduced to a shell - a symbol of years of conflict in the country.