Deputy Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish says the second bombing on Monday was caused by a suicide attacker who struck the area of the first blast after security forces gathered there.
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“All CARE staff have been evacuated, are safe and are accounted for”, it confirmed.
Mid-morning on Tuesday, after hours of standoff interrupted occasionally by sporadic gunfire, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said Afghan special forces had killed all those involved in the attack.
An Afghan special forces unit responded to the site of the attack and engaged in a shootout that lasted for 10 hours.
A massive blast caused by a suicide vehicle bomber hit Kabul late Monday – just hours after two deadly bombs went off near the Afghan Defense Ministry.
At least one person has been killed in an attack on the offices of an global charity in the centre of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
“We extend our profound condolences to the government and the people of Afghanistan and the families of those who lost their loved ones in this brutal terrorist attack”, it said.
The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for that attack, in which a suicide bomber caught security forces personnel and civilians who rushed to help victims of the first explosion.
At least one person died in the assault on a charity called Pamlarena, which means care in Pashto, but it was unclear if the target was the global charity CARE.
The Interior Ministry said all the attackers had been killed. The dead included a suicide bomber and several Defence Ministry officials.
The White House strongly condemned the attack and voiced its support for “a more secure, stable and prosperous Afghanistan”. “That is why they are attacking, highways, cities, mosques, schools and ordinary people”.
Explosions and gunfire rocked the campus in that attack, which came just weeks after two university professors – an American and an Australian – were kidnapped at gunpoint near the school.
Two security force generals were among those killed in the attack, which was claimed by the Taliban.
Afghan forces backed by USA troops are seeking to head off a potential Taliban takeover of Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern opium-rich province of Helmand.
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The Taliban have also recently closed in on Kunduz – the northern city they briefly seized past year in their biggest military victory since the 2001 United States invasion – leaving Afghan forces stretched on multiple fronts.
