Coordinated Taliban bombings targeted the Afghan Defense Ministry in a crowded neighborhood of Kabul Monday, officials said, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens, among them senior security officials.
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Afghan authorities said they were trying to pin down the location of the blast and there was no immediate claim of responsibility from any militant group.
“Such acts will create distrust between the people of both countries and become a reason for further deterioration of relationship”, the group’s Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.
President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack saying it had been carried out by those he called the enemies of Afghanistan who had lost their ability to fight the security and defence forces.
The Taliban have already claimed responsibility for the attack which comes barely two weeks after some students were killed at a university in an attack on Kabul. More than 90 people were wounded. He said police now have control of the area.
Afghanistan is combating forces of the “devil and darkness” intent on destroying humanity, declared the country’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Abdullah as he called for increasing support to the USA -backed Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).
Since then, Taliban fighters have been slowly building an insurgency against US-led forces and the US-supported Afghanistan government.
The afternoon attack included an initial bombing, followed by a suicide bomb attack, said Sediq Sediqi, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Information.
He accused Afghan forces of using Indian attack helicopters to destroy a key bridge during recent fighting in the volatile northern Kunduz province.
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A United Nations report in July found that a record number of civilians had been killed or wounded in the first six months of 2016 since the agency began counting in 2009.
