Suicide Bomber Strikes outside Police Office in Afghan Capital
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Ten people were killed and 20 wounded, most of them civilians after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a police station on Monday in a busy area of western Kabul, Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes amid the Taliban’s unprecedented winter offensive despite a renewed push to restart formal peace talks.
Najib Danish, an interior ministry spokesman said there was “a suicide car bomb in the vicinity of a police base in Kabul city”. Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Ayub Salangi said later in a Twitter post that ten people were killed and 20 wounded.
Ambulances rushed to the scene, which was cordoned off by authorities, The Guardian reported.
The attack comes 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 United States 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 militant movement that stalled last year.
The Afghan National Civil Order Police was set up as a gendarmerie-style unit to control riots and urban disorder but have also been used in counterinsurgency roles against the Taliban.
