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January 12, 2017

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UAE officials among dead in Afghanistan attacks

FIVE UAE officials were among 57 people killed in a string of bombings across Afghan cities, authorities said yesterday.

They were among 12 people killed when explosives hidden in a sofa detonated inside the governor’s compound in southern Kandahar on Tuesday.

Just hours before, twin Taliban blasts in Kabul tore through a parliament annexe, which houses lawmakers’ offices, killing at least 38 people and wounding around 86 others.

Earlier, a Taliban suicide bomber killed seven people in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand Province.

The carnage underscores growing insecurity in Afghanistan, where US-backed forces are struggling to combat a Taliban insurgency as well as al-Qaida and Islamic State militants.

Kandahar’s governor Humayun Azizi and UAE envoy Juma Mohammed Abdullah Al Kaabi were wounded by flames from the explosion, but many others were burned beyond recognition, said provincial police chief Abdul Raziq.

“I was in the room, but had to leave to offer my evening prayer,” Raziq said. “I heard the boom from outside and when I came back I saw people were burning.”

Kandahar’s deputy governor Abdul Shamsi was among the 12 people killed.

“The terrorist attack happened at a time when the ambassador and a number of UAE diplomats in Afghanistan were on a trip to Kandahar to lay the foundation stone of an orphanage,” the Afghan foreign ministry said.

The Taliban has denied responsibility for the Kandahar attack, but said that they were behind the blasts in Kabul.


 

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