Militants attacked an global charity in Kabul Tuesday during an hours-long assault labelled a war crime by Amnesty, as the capital reeled from a wave of violence that has killed at least 24 and wounded dozens. Sporadic blasts and gunfire followed during the government’s clearance operation early Tuesday.
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“Forty-two people including 10 foreigners were rescued”, ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter, confirming at least one fatality in the attack.
“The attack by an armed group on the aid agency CARE International.is the deliberate targeting of civilians and constitutes a war crime”, the Britain-based rights group said in a statement on Tuesday.
The special forces gunned down all three assailants, according to Seddiq Seddiqi, a spokesperson for the Afghan interior ministry.
But Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a public policy research group in Washington, said any friction between Afghanistan and Pakistan “should not be an excuse by Kabul not to focus on improving politics and [good] governance”.
Mohammad Radmanish, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told Anadolu Agency more lives were lost when police and civilians rushed to the site of the first blast and the second bomber then blew himself up.
Firemen raced to retrieve some bodies thrown into the Kabul River by the intensity of the first blast on the bridge.
Wahidullah Majroh, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Health, said at least 91 others were injured, and some were in a critical condition. More than 40 people were evacuated, he said.
Two weeks ago 13 people were killed when a suicide attack targetted the American University in Kabul.
“That is why they are attacking highways, cities, mosques, schools and common people”. It was the worst attack in the capital since at least 80 people were killed by a suicide bomber who targeted a demonstration on July 23, an attack claimed by ISIS.
“[Monday’s] awful attacks showed we still have to work to go after those entities on the ground, Taliban and others, and rule them out if they are going to continue to carry out those kinds of attacks”, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. Their whereabouts are still unknown and no group so far has publicly claimed responsibility for the abductions.
The recent attacks highlight the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, which has left dozens of civilians dead.
Fierce fighting continues between the Afghan army and the militants across the country, notably in the southern province of Helmand and in the vicinity of the northern city of Kunduz.
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Outside Kabul, the insurgents have stepped up their military campaign, threatening towns including Lashkar Gah, capital of the strategic southern province of Helmand, as well as Kunduz, the northern city they briefly took a year ago.
