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Taliban suicide bomber kills 20, wounds 29 in Kabul
A Taliban suicide bomber has blown himself up after joining a queue to enter a police office in Kabul, killing 20 people and wounding at least 29 in the worst such attack this year.
A Taliban suicide bomber has blown himself up after joining a queue to enter a police office in Kabul, killing 20 people and wounding at least 29 in the worst such attack this year.
Monday’s attack near the headquarters of the paramilitary Afghan National Civil Order Police was claimed by the militant group, which, despite a renewed push to restart formal peace talks, is mounting an unprecedented winter offensive.
Najib Danish, an interior ministry spokesman said there was “a suicide car bomb in the vicinity of a police base in Kabul city”.
An AFP photographer said he saw at least 10 bodies around the base. Ambulances rushed to the scene, which was cordoned off by authorities. The interior ministry later said in a statement that the attack had claimed the lives of 20 people and wounded nearly 30 others, Reuters reported.
The attack came before a third round of four-country “roadmap talks” trying to lay the groundwork for direct dialogue between Kabul and the Taliban.
Delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US are set to convene in Islamabad on 6 February in an effort to seek a negotiated end to the 14-year Taliban insurgency.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks on government and foreign targets in Afghanistan this winter, when fighting usually abates, underscoring a worsening security situation.
Observers say the intensifying insurgency highlights a push by the militants to seize more territory in an attempt to wrangle greater concessions during talks.
The city was hit by a series of suicide attacks last month, including one that killed seven journalists from a private television station as the Taliban stepped up their campaign against the western-backed government.
The attacks coincided with renewed efforts to revive a peace process with the Islamist insurgent movement that stalled last year.
The Afghan National Civil Order police was set up as a gendarmerie-style paramilitary unit to control riots and urban disorder but have also been used in counter-insurgency roles against the Taliban.
