“I strongly condemn the heinous attack by coward terrorists in Shahr-e-Naw Kabul”.
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The Taliban, who have carried out frequent attacks in Kabul, said they were responsible for the blasts.
In a Brookings forum on USA policy toward Afghanistan on Tuesday, Felbab-Brown said Washington should engage both militarily and politically with Kabul, adding that the challenges facing Afghanistan are more about the evolution of the political process.
The explosion of a remote-controlled bomb near the Ministry of Defense compound in Kabul was followed by a suicide bombing. The dead included a suicide bomber and several Defence Ministry officials.
Smoke rises from the site of an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan September 6, 2016. An hour before midnight on Monday, a suicide auto bomber.
An Afghan official says a suicide vehicle bomber has targeted a residential area in Kabul late at night.
At least 35 people including six Afghan security forces were killed in twin bombings near the Presidential Administrative Office and Defense Ministry in Kabul on Monday, ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanesh said, adding 103 people were also wounded in the attack.
That attack came just hours after a separate Taliban double bombing killed at least 24 people and injured 90 others elsewhere in the capital.
The Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi confirmed that three gunmen were killed in total.
Forty two people, including 10 foreigners were rescued, he said in a tweet.
No group has admitted carrying out the attack.
“All CARE staff have been evacuated, are safe and are accounted for”.
The standoff, which lasted overnight after special forces surrounded the area, was mostly quiet with sporadic gunfire until the situation was resolved with explosions and shots in the morning.
Government leaders have been preparing for a conference in Brussels next month regarding Afghan security forces’ inability to combat increasing Taliban violence.
Earlier, twin blasts in quick succession tore through an afternoon crowd in a bustling area of the city close to the Defence Ministry.
A day before three blasts rocked Kabul killing more than twenty people and injuring 100 others. The total civilian casualty figure recorded by the United Nations since 1 January 2009 through 30 June 2016 has risen to 63,934, including 22,941 deaths and 40,993 injured. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Many casualties in the defence ministry attack were caused when security forces personnel and civilians who rushed to help victims of an initial explosion were caught by a second blast minutes later. The attack on CARE International “is the deliberate targeting of civilians and constitutes a war crime”, Amnesty International said, calling for an independent probe to bring the perpetrators to justice. Senior police investigator Faredoon Obiadi said the suicide attacker was wearing military uniform.
Ashuqullah, 34, who like many Afghans has no surname, described the scene of chaos he witnessed.
The violence comes more than a week after 16 people were killed when militants stormed the American University in Kabul, in a almost 10-hour raid that prompted anguished pleas for help from trapped students.
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Traffic was blocked in several parts of the city and schools were closed. No police were harmed, he said.
