Six dead, 50 children wounded in Taliban car bomb attack on Kabul

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - At least 6 people were killed and dozens, including 50 children, were wounded Monday when the Taliban detonated a powerful car bomb in Kabul, officials said -- the latest deadly attack in one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a child.

Save the Children led international condemnation of the blast targeting a defense ministry building, which sent a plume of smoke into the air during rush hour and shook buildings nearly two kilometers (1.2 miles) away. 

Gunmen then stormed a nearby building, triggering a gun battle with special forces in the Puli Mahmood Khan neighbourhood of the Afghan capital. 

At least 6 people were killed, including a child and 2 special forces, said interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi.

The health ministry put the wounded toll at 116 people. Among the injured were 50 children, officials said, adding that most had been hurt by flying glass and were in stable condition.

Rahimi said all 5 gunmen and the driver of the car had been killed, and a clearing operation was over.

Some social media images purportedly taken at a hospital showed wounded, stunned children in school uniforms, still clutching books as they arrived for treatment. 

Five schools were damaged in the blast, the education ministry said.

Save the Children branded the attack "utterly deplorable", warning that "children's smaller bodies sustain more serious injuries than adults" and that the trauma of such attacks can stay with them for years.

'The world turned upside down' -

The Taliban claimed the attack, which came just two days after the insurgents began a seventh round of talks with the US in Qatar, as Washington eyes a breakthrough before Afghanistan's presidential election in September.

"We were sitting inside the office when the world turned upside down on us," said Zaher Usman, an employee at a branch of the culture ministry, which he said stands just 150 meters (yards) from the blast site.

"When I opened my eyes, the office was filled with smoke and dust and everything was broken, my colleagues were screaming," Usman told AFP by telephone.

AFP reporters could hear gunshots and multiple smaller explosions for hours after the initial blast, before the clearing operation was announced. 

The interior ministry said 210 civilians had been rescued from buildings nearby.

Taliban reject talks with Kabul 

Nearby Shamshad TV station, which was attacked in 2017, aired images of broken glass and damage to its offices. 

"I was terrified," Shamshad anchor Hashmat Stanikzai told AFP. 

A media watchdog said seven Shamshad journalists were among the wounded.

The attack came as the US was set to resume negotiations with the militants in Doha.

With the attack still ongoing, the Taliban spokesman in Doha again insisted that the insurgents will not negotiate with Kabul.

"Once the timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces is set in the presence of international observers, then we will begin the talks to the Afghan side, but we will not talk to the Kabul administration as a government," Suhail Shaheen tweeted. 

There are deep concerns among Afghans who fear Washington will rush for the exits and allow the militants to return to some semblance of power.

However, US officials have insisted that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed", including intra-Afghan talks.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Huge car bomb near embassies in Afghan capital kills or wounds dozens

KABUL - A powerful car bomb exploded in the center of Afghanistan's capital on Wednesday, killing or wounding dozens of people and sending clouds of black smoke into the sky above the presidential palace and foreign embassies, officials said

Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for Kabul police, said several people were killed and wounded in the blast near the fortified entrance to the German embassy.

"It was a car bomb near the German embassy, but there are several other important compounds and offices near there too. It is hard to say what the exact target is," Mujahid said.

The explosion shattered windows and blew doors off their hinges in houses hundreds of metres (yards) away.

A public health spokesman said at least 67 wounded people had been taken to hospitals around Kabul.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. A spokesman for Taliban insurgents said he was gathering information.

Violence around Afghanistan has been rising throughout the year, as the Taliban push to defeat the U.S.-backed government and reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster in a Washington-backed invasion.

Since most international troops withdrew at the end of 2014, the Taliban have gained ground and now control or contest about 40 percent of the country, according to U.S. estimates, though President Ashraf Ghani's government holds all provincial centres.

U.S. President Donald Trump is due to decide soon on a recommendation to send 3,000 to 5,000 more troops to bolster the small NATO training force and U.S. counter-terrorism mission now totalling just over 10,000.

The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, told a congressional hearing earlier this year that he needed several thousand more troops to help Afghan forces break a "stalemate" with the Taliban.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Dozens feared dead in Mogadishu car bomb

MOGADISHU - A car bomb exploded near a busy market in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Saturday killing at least eight people, police said, as medical sources warned the toll could be far higher.

"We have counted about eight civilians so far who were killed in the blast and more than 10 others wounded but the death toll could be higher because the area is a market and it was so densely populated when the blast occurred, most people who were wounded have serious injuries," said police official Ibrahim Mohamed.

Medical sources suggested nearly 30 people had been killed, but this was not confirmed by authorities.

"Our ambulances have collected 13 wounded civilians and 28 dead bodies, the toll could be higher because of the density of the location where the blast occurred," Dr Abdukadir Abdirahman Adem, director of the AMIN ambulance service told AFP.

The blast took place in the densely populated Afisiyone area in southern Mogadishu.

"There was chaos and severed dead bodies strewn around the street, the market was so busy with people shopping when the blast ripped through the area. I saw many dead bodies but I could not count, I have helped collect more than 10 of them," said Abdulahi Osman, who witnessed the blast.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but immediate suspicion fell on the Al-Qaeda linked Islamist group Shabaab, locked in battle against the Somali government and which regularly mounts attacks in the city.

Its most deadly recent attack was in August when a car bomb outside a popular hotel close to the presidential palace left 15 dead.

Despite being driven out of the capital in 2011 by an African Union force deployed in 2007 the group still control vast swathes of outlying rural areas from which they launch guerrilla operations.

source: news.abs-cbn.com