30 dead in Kabul bomb attack as Taliban ‘fighting season’ continues
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AT least 30 people were killed and hundreds wounded when a Taliban truck bomb tore through central Kabul yesterday, triggering a fierce firefight, a week after insurgents launched their annual spring offensive.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a densely crowded neighborhood, which sent clouds of smoke billowing into the sky and rattled windows several kilometers away.
The assault near the defense ministry marks the first major Taliban attack in the Afghan capital since insurgents announced the start of this year’s “fighting season.”
“One of the suicide attackers blew up an explosives-laden truck in a public parking lot next to a government building,” Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told reporters.
“The second attacker engaged security forces in a gunbattle before being gunned down.”
Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said 30 people, including women and children, were killed in the attack and said the toll could rise further.
He added that more than 320 were wounded, with many of them fighting for their lives in hospital.
The firefight appeared to die down several hours after the explosion, but some security officials expressed concern that other bombers may still be on the loose.
“I saw wounded people lying on the road and screaming helplessly,” said Sadiqullah, who runs a tea stall near the building which was attacked.
“It was devastating. We are fed up with such attacks. How long must ordinary civilians suffer like this?”
The interior ministry said hundreds of kilograms of explosives were used in the bombing, the deadliest so far this year in the Afghan capital.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said its fighters had managed to enter the offices of the National Directorate of Security, the main spy agency.
Sediqqi conceded that one of the attackers managed to breach the compound, a government office responsible for providing security to government VIPs, but said he was gunned down.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said: “This attack shows the devastation caused by the use of explosive devices in urban areas and once more demonstrates complete disregard for the lives of Afghan civilians.
“The use of explosives in populated areas, in circumstances almost certain to cause immense suffering to civilians, may amount to war crimes.”
Last week, the Taliban announced the start of its spring offensive even as the government tried to bring them back to the negotiating table.
The insurgents warned they would “employ large-scale attacks on enemy positions across the country” during the offensive dubbed Operation Omari in honor of the movement’s late founder Mullah Omar, whose death was announced last year.
The Taliban began the fighting season last week by targeting the northern city of Kunduz, which they briefly captured last year in a stunning setback for Afghan forces.
But officials said Afghan forces had driven Taliban fighters back from the city on Friday.
The annual spring offensive normally marks the start of the “fighting season,” though this past winter the lull was shorter and rebels continued to battle government forces, albeit with less intensity.
The Taliban’s resurgence has raised serious questions about Afghan forces’ capacity to hold their own. NATO estimates that a staggering 5,500 troops were killed last year.
Peace talks which began last summer were abruptly halted after it was revealed that Mullah Omar had been dead for two years, a disclosure which sparked infighting in the insurgents’ ranks.
A four-country group comprising Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States has been holding meetings since January aimed at jump-starting negotiations, though efforts have so far been in vain.
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