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Kabul hit by explosion hours after suicide bombing in Kunar Kabul suicide bombing kills at least nine people and injures 13
(35 minutes later)
A loud explosion has rocked the Afghan capital, Kabul, hours after a suicide bomber killed at least 11 people in the eastern province of Kunar. A suicide bomber has killed at least nine people in the Afghan capital, Kabul, hours after another attack killed at least 11 people in the eastern province of Kunar.
Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said it was not yet clear what caused the blast near the defence ministry on Saturday but casualties were feared. Officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China have been pressing for a resumption of the peace process interrupted last year between the western-backed government in Kabul and the Taliban. But it remains unclear whether the Taliban, struggling to contain deep internal divisions, will take part. The Kabul police chief, General Abdul Rahman Rahimi, said another 13 people were wounded in the attack near the defence ministry, which rocked the capital and sent a column of white smoke into the sky.
Security forces blocked the main road in front of the ministry following the blast.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack in an email sent to media.
Officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the US and China have been pressing for a resumption of the peace process interrupted last year between the western-backed government in Kabul and the Taliban. But it remains unclear whether the Taliban, struggling to contain deep internal divisions, will take part.
The hardline insurgent group has conducted a series of attacks in Kabul and other areas this year and has pressed its military campaign in the southern province of Helmand, where it has forced government troops to pull out of a number of districts.The hardline insurgent group has conducted a series of attacks in Kabul and other areas this year and has pressed its military campaign in the southern province of Helmand, where it has forced government troops to pull out of a number of districts.
Earlier on Saturday, a suicide bomber killed a local militia commander and at least 14 others outside the governor’s compound in Asadabad, the provincial capital of Kunar, near the border with Pakistan. The provincial governor, Wahidullah Kalimzai, said the bomber rode up on a motorcycle to the entrance of the compound and blew himself up, wounding at least 40 people. “Most of the victims were civilians and children who were either passing by or playing in the park,” he said. Earlier on Saturday, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle attacked a local tribal leader near a park in eastern Kunar province, killing at least 10 civilians, an Afghan official said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the apparent target of the attack, a tribal elder and militia commander named Haji Khan Jan, was among the dead. He had been closely involved in a number of operations against the Taliban in his district last year. General Abdul Habib Sayedkhaili, provincial police chief in Kunar, said that the tribal leader Khan Jan was among those killed.
Jan was a vocal public opponent of the Taliban and was leading fighters against the insurgents in his area in Dangam district.
Forty other civilians were wounded in the attack, which took place in the provincial capital Asadabad, said Sayedkhaili.
A statement from the Afghan interior ministry said the attack was “an act against humanity”.
It was not immediately possible to reconcile different death and injury tolls.
No group claimed responsibility for the Kunar attack, but provincial officials said they suspected the Taliban.