Worth keeping in mind for for this morning’s rollout of President-elect Obama’s national security team:

A suicide car bomber set off a powerful blast today near the gates of the U.S. Embassy, killing at least four Afghan civilians and injuring more than a dozen others.

Weaving in and out of morning rush-hour traffic near one of Kabul’s busiest traffic circles, the bomber’s Toyota Corolla struck several other cars before exploding, witnesses said.

The obvious question is whether this attack is meant to build on to the Mumbai attacks and entrench the sense that South Asia is spiraling out of control. No one inside the embassy itself seems to have been harmed. But the message sent — we can reach you where you live — is an unmistakable one, and one that speaks to Obama’s intended re-focus on Afghanistan/Pakistan. We’ll see if Obama or the team says anything about this at the announcement in another hour and a half.

Update: the bombing took place on Jan. 26, 2008, not the day this post was published, as it first read.