Kabul hit by explosion hours after Kunar suicide bombing
Saturday 27 February 2016 07.18 EST
Last modified on Saturday 27 February 2016 07.19 EST
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/27/kabul-explosion-hours-after-kunar-suicide-bombing-afghanA loud explosion has rocked the Afghan capital, Kabul, hours after a suicide bomber 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 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. 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.
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.
