One killed, scored injured as Kabul car bomb targets foreign forces

Attack came two days after Ashraf Ghani offered to start peace talks with Taliban

KABUL:

A suicide car bomber struck on Friday in the Afghan capital of Kabul, killing one person and wounding 14 bystanders, officials said, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the Afghan interior ministry said.

"Unfortunately around 9:00 am, a car bombing took place in (the) Qabil Bay area of Kabul," ministry spokesperson Najib Danish told AFP, giving the toll and adding that police are investigating.

A police official said a suicide bomber had struck in the Afghan capital, Kabul, after a loud explosion was heard in an area close to foreign embassies on Friday.

Police sirens could be heard in the area but there was no immediate word on any casualties from the blast.

Bismillah Tabaan, the police commander of the city’s ninth district where the explosion took place, said the cause of the blast was a suicide bombing but details, including the target, were not yet clear.

Interior ministry spokesperson Najib Danish said the cause of the explosion was a car bomb in the Qabl Bai area of the city. At least four civilians had been wounded, he said.

The attack came two days after President Ashraf Ghani offered to start peace talks with the Taliban and just over a month after an explosives-packed ambulance was detonated in the city center, killing around 100 people.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest blast.

Much of the center of Kabul is already a zone of concrete blast walls, razor wire and police checkpoints but security has been tightened even further in the wake of the Jan. 27 ambulance attack and another attack on the city’s Intercontinental Hotel earlier in the month.