No radical group active in the region has yet claimed responsibility for the incident.
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The second attack occurred Saturday afternoon when an explosion tore through a busy street near the gate of the Ministry of Defense headquarters in Kabul.
Another suicide bomber struck Saturday in Kabul, killing at least nine people near the Defense Ministry compound, said Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi, the Kabul police chief.
In the day’s first attack, a suicide blast in Kunar province in the east killed at least 11 people and injured 40 others.
Twenty-five people have been killed in two attacks in Afghanistan, including one in the capital, with the blasts potentially jeopardising attempts by Kabul to persuade the Taliban to join peace talks set for next month.
A tribal elder and militia commander named Haji Khan Jan was among the dead.
Two separate terrorist attacks killed at least 24 people and wounded dozens of others Saturday in Afghanistan, including a powerful explosion that ended a three-week lull in major violence here in the capital.
“This attack presented another example of the enmity of terrorists with the Afghan nation, especially women and children”, Abdullah said.
“They were rescued following a special operation from a Taliban prison in Nad Ali district, Helmand province last night”, Xinhua cited the ministry as saying in a statement.
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The attacks have coincided with renewed efforts to revive the peace process with the Taliban which broke down in July. In the 1980s and 1990s, wars led to the downfall of a Soviet-backed communist government and, eventually, the Taliban’s rise to power. There had been hope that the talks, which were interrupted previous year, would be held in Islamabad as early as next week.
