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Kabul suicide bombing kills at least nine people and injures 13 Taliban suicide bombings kill Afghan civilians
(35 minutes later)
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. The Taliban has killed scores of civilians in two separate attacks in Afghanistan just days after being invited to try to resume peace talks.
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. A suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed at least 11 and wounded 40 in the eastern city of Asadabad on Saturday morning. Most of the victims were civilians and children playing in a park, but the pro-government militia commander, Haji Khan Jan, was also killed, the governor of Kunar province told Reuters.
Security forces blocked the main road in front of the ministry following the blast. The capital, Kabul, was hit in the afternoon when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives vest in a pedestrian area between the ministries of finance and defence, apparently targeting government employees.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack in an email sent to media. The attack killed at least 12, including two government staff members, and wounded eight, the defence ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said.
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 attacks are likely to be regarded as a response to the meeting in Kabul this week between Afghan, Pakistani, US and Chinese officials who are trying to revive peace talks.
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 quartet gave the Taliban an “ultimatum”, as the Afghanistan Analysts Network termed it, to either join the next meeting, slated for early March, or face a military clampdown.
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. The most recent peace process involving the Taliban collapsed in July when it was revealed that the group’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had died in 2013.
General Abdul Habib Sayedkhaili, provincial police chief in Kunar, said that the tribal leader Khan Jan was among those killed. After an unusually fierce Taliban campaign through the winter, many worry that if it is not persuaded to decrease violence, this year could be the most challenging yet for the Afghan security forces. Many also think the militants won’t have much incentive to seek peace as long as their military momentum continues.
Jan was a vocal public opponent of the Taliban and was leading fighters against the insurgents in his area in Dangam district. According to the New York Times, the Taliban now controls more territory than at any point since 2001.
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.