“42 people including 10 foreigners were rescued” after the attack, interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter.
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An Afghan Interior Ministry statement said that a suicide auto bombing struck close to a building belonging to the charity CARE International in Shar-e Naw late Monday night, after which three more attackers entered the building.
Hours later on 11 p.m. Monday, attackers targeted an global humanitarian agency CARE worldwide in downtown Kabul, triggering gun battle that was over after 11 hours of fierce fighting with all the four attackers killed.
“Succession of terrorist attacks have left people in shock and no one feels secure whenever comes out of his or her home in the morning”, a Kabul resident, Mohammad Rafi told Xinhua.
September 7: The United States has reaffirmed its strong support to Afghanistan following the deadly attacks in capital Kabul targeting a CARE International NGO.
An explosion rocked the neighborhood of Shar-e Now, or New City, area around 11 p.m. on Monday, followed by gunfire that is still underway.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attacks highlighted the precarious security climate in the capital just a month before a conference in Brussels where global donors are expected to pledge continued financial support to Afghanistan.
Health ministry said 24 people were killed in the blasts.
A massive, third explosion was heard in the Kabul city late Monday night, hours after back-to-back explosions left at least 30 persons dead and over 90 wounded.
President Ashraf Ghani strongly condemned the attack and blamed the “enemies of Afghanistan” for the incident.
The fighting started almost eight hours earlier when the suicide attack was followed by gunfire, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.
Firemen raced to retrieve some bodies thrown into the Kabul River by the intensity of the first blast on the bridge.
“All three assailants were gunned down by security forces”.
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 U.S. invasion – leaving Afghan forces stretched on multiple fronts.
Four bombing attacks have occurred in Kabul in the last two days killing dozens of civilians. Two weeks ago, gunmen stormed the campus of the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, detonating explosives and shooting at students, staff and faculty.
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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”.
