For years, Nepali uniformed guards at foreign embassies and compounds across Kabul have been a polite, low-key presence in the gritty Afghan capital, which has been toughened by decades of conflict and is teeming with swaggering gunmen. The guards, all Buddhists or Hindus, often greet familiar visitors with a traditional gesture, bowing slightly with palms raised and pressed together, as they monitor X-ray machines and entryways.On Monday morning, several of them were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a minibus carrying guards across the city from a fortified dormitory compound to their posts at the Canadian Embassy. The attack occurred just one month after a Nepali guard was fatally shot by an Afghan guard at a U.N. compound in Kabul, reportedly in a dispute
For years, Nepali uniformed guards at foreign embassies and compounds across Kabul have been a polite, low-key presence in the gritty Afghan capital, which has been toughened by decades of conflict and is teeming with swaggering gunmen. The guards, all Buddhists or Hindus, often greet familiar visitors with a traditional gesture, bowing slightly with palms raised and pressed together, as they monitor X-ray machines and entryways.On Monday morning, several of them were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a minibus carrying guards across the city from a fortified dormitory compound to their posts at the Canadian Embassy. The attack occurred just one month after a Nepali guard was fatally shot by an Afghan guard at a U.N. compound in Kabul, reportedly in a dispute