Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Reuters
Reuters
Politics

Suicide car bomber attacks Afghan capital, at least one dead

Afghan police officers inspect the site of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber struck on Friday in the Afghan capital of Kabul, killing one person and wounding 14 bystanders, officials said, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The attack came two days after President Ashraf Ghani offered to start peace talks with the Taliban, and just over a month after an ambulance packed with explosives was detonated in the city centre, killing about 100 people.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said the cause of the explosion was a car bomb in the city's Qabl Bai area. One person had been killed and 14 bystanders wounded, he added, with all the casualties civilians.

A member of Afghan security force keeps watch at the site of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

Bismillah Tabaan, commander of police in the city's ninth district, said it had been a suicide bombing.

The intended target was not clear, but a statement from the Australian Foreign Ministry said the explosion took place near Australian embassy vehicles as they were travelling in the city. It said no one from the embassy had been harmed.

Much of the centre of Kabul is already a zone of concrete blast walls, razor wire and police checkpoints, but security has been tightened even further in the wake of the Jan. 27 ambulance attack and another attack on the city's Intercontinental Hotel earlier in the month.

Men clear broken windows in from their office, located near the site of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

(Reporting by James Mackenzie and Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Paul Tait, Clarence Fernandez and Kevin Liffey)

Afghan police officers keep watch at the site of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani
A man clears broken windows in his office located near the site of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan March 2, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani
Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.