Afghan blasts kill 25, jeopardising peace talks

KABUL:

Twenty-five people were killed in two attacks in Afghanistan Saturday, including one in the capital, with the blasts potentially jeopardising attempts by Kabul to persuade the Taliban to join peace talks set for next month.

Witnesses and officials described how the suicide bomber detonated near the defence ministry in the centre of Kabul just as offices closed for the day, in an attack later claimed by the Taliban.

"Twelve people, including two Afghan soldiers were killed and eight others injured," a ministry statement said, while a previous toll given by Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi stated nine were dead and 13 wounded.

The bomber was on foot, ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri added.

"I saw wounded civilians and army soldiers. They were begging for help but security forces did not allow common people to help them," witness Sardar Mohammad told AFP. "The causalities, mostly, were civilians," said another man, Saleh Mohammad. "It was the time when all the people were going home."

Ambulances converged at the site of the explosion as police and the army set up a security cordon.

Earlier on Saturday a suicide bomber on a motorbike struck at a market in Asadabad, the capital of restive Kunar province, killing 13 people and wounding at least 39.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for that attack, which a spokesman for the provincial governor and a police official both said targeted a tribal leader fiercely opposed to the insurgents, Haji Khan Jan. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2016.