KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — The thunderous explosion Saturday that targeted Western military headquarters in the heart of Kabul carried an ominous message aimed at ordinary Afghans just five days before national elections: Vote at your peril.
The audacious suicide car bombing, which killed at least seven people and injured nearly 100, appeared designed to signal that insurgents can strike at will even in the capital's most tightly guarded districts.
"The intent here is clear," said Aziz Rafiee, executive director of the Afghan Civil Society Forum. "To give the impression, as we approach the vote, that measures taken for security by the Afghan government and the international community are fragile."
President Hamid Karzai, facing a tough challenge in Thursday's presidential and provincial assembly balloting, declared that "enemies of Afghanistan . . . are trying to create fear among the people as we get close to the election." He predicted that people would defy the Taliban's campaign of intimidation and go to the polls.
The Obama administration and the Western military are heavily invested in a successful vote, which they hope will enhance the legitimacy of the central government and bolster efforts to increase Afghanistan's self-sufficiency in security matters. President Obama has called the balloting the most important event of the year in Afghanistan.
The attack, at the gates of the sprawling base that serves as the seat of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan, was a bold one. The car used in the bombing, which carried an estimated 600 pounds of explosives, would have had to pass through several rings of security to get so close to the military headquarters: checkpoints, rolls of barbed wire, red-and-white-striped safety gates and concrete barriers.
The outermost checkpoints, on busy city streets, are staffed by Afghan police officers, not international troops, suggesting that laxity or even complicity could have played a role.
The street where the bomber struck is one of the most closely secured in Kabul. The U.S. Embassy is next door, and the presidential palace is nearby. Only traffic bound for the military headquarters is supposed to enter by the route the vehicle took.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement that several soldiers were wounded, but did not give their nationalities or say where they were stationed at the time. The gate usually is guarded by a small contingent of Macedonian soldiers who are relatively exposed to the street.
