Afghanistan bombing

Kabul’s Deputy Governor Killed in a Bomb Blast in Afghanistan

Security officials said a magnetic bomb, known as a “sticky bomb”, had been placed on Mahboobullah Mohebi’s car.

Kabul: The deputy governor of the Afghan capital of Kabul was killed on Tuesday in a bomb attack on his car as he went to work, security officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast that killed Mahboobullah Mohebi as he was travelling with security guards. Two guards were wounded.

Security officials said a magnetic bomb, known as a “sticky bomb”, had been placed on his car.

A deputy provincial council member was killed in a similar attack in the western province of Ghor earlier on Tuesday where one council member and a driver were wounded, said Arif Aber, a spokesman for the provincial governor’s office.

Violence in Afghanistan has not abated despite peace talks between the government and Taliban insurgents. Last week, a government prosecutor was shot dead in Kabul while he was on his way to work.

Afghanistan: Three Blasts Rock Kabul Killing at Least 15 as US General Visits

Afghan security experts say insurgents are increasing attacks to gain greater leverage in the eighth round of peace talks expected to begin this month in Qatar.

Kabul: Three bombs rocked the Afghan capital of Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 15 people, officials said, as the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff was meeting top US and NATO officials in the city.

Eight employees of the ministry of mines and petroleum were killed and 27 wounded in an attack on their bus, ministry officials said in a statement. Five women and a child were among the dead.

Minutes after the blast, a suicide bomber blew himself up a few meters away, killing at least seven people and wounding 20.

“First a magnetic bomb pasted to a minibus exploded, then a suicide bomber blew himself near the bus attack site and the third blast happened when a car was blown up by unknown militants,” said Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesman of the interior ministry in Kabul.

“The death toll could rise from all the three blasts,” he said.

The Taliban, fighting to restore strict Islamic law after their 2001 ouster at the hands of US-led troops, claimed responsibility for the car bomb alone.

Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said nine foreign forces were killed and two vehicles destroyed, but government officials did not confirm the Taliban claim.

Also read: How Successful Were the Afghan Peace Talks in Qatar?

US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Marine General Joseph Dunford also met US peace envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who is leading talks with Taliban militants to end the 18-year-long war.

The US is trying to negotiate a deal that would see foreign forces pull out of Afghanistan in return for security guarantees by Taliban militants, including a pledge that the country will not become a safe haven for terror groups.

Afghan security experts said the insurgents were increasing attacks to gain greater leverage in the peace talks. The eighth round is expected to begin this month in Qatar.

The Taliban also clashed with Afghan forces in the northern province of Takhar to secure control over checkpoints and capture several districts. Both sides said that they have inflicted heavy damage on their opponents.

In the eastern province of Nangarhar, a roadside bomb hit a wedding party on Thursday. Six women and three children were killed in the blast in Khogyani district, the provincial governor’s office said in a statement.

No group has claimed responsibility for that attack.

(Reuters)

Six Killed in Suicide Bombing in Kabul

The attacker detonated his suicide vest close to the checkpoint near a school in central Kabul, which is in the same area as the finance and justice ministries and close to the presidential palace.

Kabul: A suicide bomber blew himself up in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Monday, killing at least six people near a police checkpoint, including policemen, officials said, but no militant group has yet claimed responsibility.

Six people were killed in the explosion, said Najib Danish, a spokesman for the interior ministry. Ten policemen and civilians, including women, were injured in the blast.

The attacker on foot detonated his suicide vest close to the checkpoint near a school in central Kabul, which is in the same area as the finance and justice ministries and close to the presidential palace.

Police spokesman Basir Mujahid said he was about 20 m (66 ft) away from the blast, near where a demonstration had broken up some 30 minutes before.

“I took four bodies away but there were more on the ground,” he said, without giving further details.

The attack came as hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Kabul to protest against the government’s failure to prevent attacks by Taliban militants in two provinces.

Afghan security forces suffered scores of casualties in heavy fighting at the weekend with Taliban militants in the provinces of Ghazni and Herat, officials have said.

Ambulance Blast in Kabul Kills Nearly 100 People

Saturday’s explosion capped a violent week in Afghanistan, with the siege at the Intercontinental and another attack on an office of the aid group Save the Children in Jalalabad.

An injured man receives treatment at a hospital after a blast in Kabul, Afghanistan, on January 27, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Mohammad Ismail

Kabul: A bomb hidden in an ambulance killed at least 95 people and wounded about 158 in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday when it blew up at a police checkpoint in a busy part of the city that was crowded with pedestrians.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide blast, a week after they claimed an attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in which more than 20 people were killed.

An interior ministry spokesman blamed the Haqqani network, a militant group affiliated with the Taliban which Afghan and Western officials consider to be behind many of the biggest attacks on urban targets in Afghanistan.

As medical teams struggled to handle the casualties pouring in, some of the wounded were laid out in the open, with intravenous drips set up next to them in hospital gardens.

“It’s a massacre,” said Dejan Panic, coordinator in Afghanistan for the Italian aid group Emergency, which runs a nearby trauma hospital that treated dozens of wounded.

Hours after the blast, a health ministry spokesman said the casualty toll had risen to at least 95 killed and 158 wounded.

Saturday’s explosion capped a violent week in Afghanistan, with the siege at the Intercontinental Hotel and another attack on an office of the aid group Save the Children in the eastern city of Jalalabad. That attack was claimed by Islamic State.

The wave of attacks has put pressure on President Ashraf Ghani and his US allies, who have expressed growing confidence that a new, more aggressive military strategy has succeeded in driving Taliban insurgents back from major provincial centres.

The US has stepped up its assistance to Afghan security forces and increased its air strikes against the Taliban and other militant groups, aiming to break a stalemate and force the insurgents to the negotiating table.

Police officers keep watch while a man drives his heavily damaged car at a car bomb attack site in Kabul, Afghanistan January 27, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Omar Sobhani

However, the Taliban have dismissed suggestions they have been weakened by the new strategy, and the past week has shown their capacity to mount deadly, high-profile attacks is undiminished, even in the heavily protected centre of Kabul.

Washington, which has accused Pakistan of giving assistance to the Taliban and has cut off some aid to Islamabad, urged all countries to take “decisive action” to stop the violence.

“There can be no tolerance for those who support or offer sanctuary to terrorist groups,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

In a statement, President Donald Trump condemned the attack and said it “renews our resolve and that of our Afghan partners.”

Pakistan, which denies the accusations, condemned the attack and called for “concerted efforts and effective cooperation among the states to eradicate the scourge of terrorism.”

Ambulance at checkpoint

Saturday is a working day in Afghanistan and the streets were full when the blast went off at around lunchtime in a busy part of the city close to shops and markets and near a number of foreign embassies and government buildings.

Mirwais Yasini, a member of parliament who was near the blast, said an ambulance approached the checkpoint and blew up, having passed through another checkpoint further down the road.

The target was apparently an Interior Ministry building but the victims were mainly people who happened to be in the street.

Buildings hundreds of metres (yards) away were shaken by the force of the blast, which left torn bodies strewn on the street amid piles of rubble, debris and wrecked cars.

“Today’s attack is nothing short of an atrocity,” Tadamichi Yamamoto, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said in a statement, adding that those behind it must be brought to justice.

The casualty toll is the worst since 150 people were killed in a huge truck bomb explosion last May near the German embassy. That attack prompted a major reinforcement of security aimed at preventing similar vehicle-borne assaults.

Security officials said further attacks were likely and security was tightened around potential targets in the city.

But with much of central Kabul already a heavily fortified zone of high concrete blast walls and police checkpoints, there were angry questions about how the bomber got through.

“Officials must be held responsible,” said former deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Ayub Salangi.

People helped walking-wounded away as ambulances with sirens wailed through the traffic-clogged streets of the city centre.

“I was sitting in the office when the explosion went off,” said Alam, an office worker whose head was badly cut in the blast. “All the windows shattered, the building collapsed and everything came down.”

The Swedish and Dutch embassies as well as the European Union mission and an Indian consular office are also nearby but there were no reports that any staff were hurt.

(Reuters)

At Least 72 Killed in Suicide Bombings at Two Afghan Mosques

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, but a statement from the group did not provide evidence to support its claim.

An Afghan policeman stands guard outside a mosque where a suicide bomber detonated a bomb, in Kabul, Afghanistan June 16, 2017. Credit: Reuters

Kabul: Suicide bombers attacked two mosques in Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 72 people including children, officials and witnesses said.

One bomber walked into a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in the capital Kabul as people were praying on Friday night and detonated an explosive, one of the worshippers there, Mahmood Shah Husaini, said.

At least 39 people died in the blast at the Imam Zaman mosque in the city’s western Dasht-e-Barchi district, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, but a statement from the group did not provide evidence to support its claim.

Shi’ite Muslims have suffered a series of attacks in Afghanistan in recent months, many of them claimed by the Sunni Muslim militants of IS.

Separately, a suicide bombing killed at least 33 people at a mosque in central Ghor province, a police spokesman said.

The attack appeared to target a local leader from the Jamiat political party, according to a statement from Balkh provincial governor Atta Mohammad Noor, a leading figure in Jamiat.

(Reuters)

Pictures and Stories: Photographing Carnage in Kabul

Photographer Omar Sobhani, who has covered many bombings in Kabul, gives an account of the attack that took place on Wednesday.

A wounded man lies on the ground at the site of a blast in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 31, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Omar Sobhani

Kabul: Reuters photographer Omar Sobhani has covered many bombings in Kabul. Wednesday’s militant attack that killed at least 80 people left scenes of particularly great carnage. “However much you see, these things still affect you strongly,” he says.

Here is his account of the attack as it unfolded when he was on the way to work with colleagues, Mohammad Ismail, a photographer and TV cameraman Mohammad Aziz.

“At first we thought it was an earthquake but we quickly realised it was a very big explosion. We were a couple of kilometers away and we could see a tower of smoke rising into the sky and drove straight to the scene.”

Credit: Omar Sobhani/Reuters

“I got out and my two colleagues went to the hospital because we could already see people with blood-stained faces and clothes running past us.”

“Normally when we get to the scene and need fast pictures, we’ll shoot something quickly on our smartphones and send them off at once. But this time, we decided to use our full cameras straight away.”

“There was a lot of smoke and fire, and around ten wrecked vehicles on the road. First, I had to make sure there wasn’t going to be any kind of follow-up attack, which is something that has often happened in the past. Once it looked clear I went towards the blast site.”

“I couldn’t see very much because of the smoke but I could hear a number of wounded people calling out and one man was talking on a mobile phone, telling friends where to find him.”

“As I went forward, I came across a person lying on the ground. I shot four or five shots quickly and he started asking for help.”

“I went to try to help him but security forces were arriving at the same time and pushed me back. I watched him being put into an ambulance and carried off. However much you see, these things still affect you strongly. I think about all these young people, women with blood on their faces and that night was very, very sad. I talked to my wife about it, all those people are members of a family as well. It’s very, very sad for me and for anyone who’s human.”

(Reuters)