Afghanistan ? A bomb ripped through the gates of the Indian Embassy on Monday, killing 41 people and scattering bodies and pools of blood across some of Kabul’s most protected Streets. Afghanistan quickly blamed Pakistan, India’s archrival.

The suicide car bomber followed a diplomat’s vehicle and detonated the explosives at the building’s main entrance, only 30 yards from where dozens of Afghans had lined up to apply for visas. The blast was the deadliest in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Nearly 150 other people were wounded.

The embassy is on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry that is protected on both ends by police, though the checkpoints are easily driven past. The 8:30 a.m. explosion rattled much of Kabul and kicked up gray dust that shrouded the bodies of the dead and enveloped the survivors – a monochromatic coating broken only by the crimson blood of the wounded. The blast blew clothing off many victims.