Kabul: At least 35 people were killed and 42 wounded after a Taliban car bomb struck a bus carrying government employees in western Kabul on Monday, authorities said, the latest attack to attack the Afghan capital.
“The car bomb struck a bus carrying Ministry of Mines employees during rush hour,” Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast that hit a crowded Afghan capital neighborhood just before 8 a.m. (0230 GMT).
The bombing came as the militant resurgent group has intensified attacks across the country in recent days, with several new districts falling to the Taliban over the weekend.
The blast reached an area of the capital that is home to many Shia Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority that has been targeted many times in the past.
It is also close to the home of prominent politician and former warlord Mohammad Mohaqeq.
Omid Maisom Mohaqiq, a spokesman for the politician, said the bomb had detonated near the first checkpoint approaching the house, “killing and wounding some civilians.”
An AFP photographer at the scene saw several bodies and injured in the street, surrounded by broken glass as security forces cordoned off the area.
The charred remains of the bus were in the middle of the road and a black column of smoke from the explosion hung in the air.
An army truck and forklift trucks were trying to remove the body from the bus while ambulances, as well as taxis and private cars, took the injured to nearby hospitals, an AFP photographer said.
The Hazara community in Kabul was due to celebrate a one-year anniversary of an attack in the heart of the capital on Monday, killing 84 people and wounding more than 300 people, mostly members of the ethnic minority.
That attack was the first in Afghanistan claimed by the Islamic group, which has since carried out multiple attacks against the country’s Shiite minority.
The Hazara community was to hold a demonstration to commemorate the tragedy of July 23, 2016, but had agreed to postpone the march after meeting with President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday.
Kabul is regularly shaken by suicide bombings and attacks. A recent UN report showed that attacks on the capital accounted for almost a fifth of all Afghan civilian casualties in the first half of 2017.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which documents civilian casualties since 2009, said in its recent report that 1,662 civilians were killed and more than 3,500 injured in the first six months of the year.
Many died in a single devastating attack in Kabul in late May, when a truck bomb exploded, also during rush hour in the morning, killing more than 150 people and wounding hundreds of people.
UNAMA put the number of civilian deaths at 92, saying it was the deadliest incident that hit the country since 2001.
The bloody toll for the first six months of 2017 has destabilized the government and increased pressure on President Ghani.
Protests and deadly street clashes hit the Afghan capital following the May crackdown as people angered by security breaches called for the resignation of their government.
The UNAMA report also said that nearly half of the 34 Afghan provinces have seen an increase in civilian deaths in the first six months of the year, mainly due to increased attacks by anti-government forces across the country.
NATO’s combat mission in Afghanistan ended three years ago, giving sole responsibility to the country’s security forces, who have also suffered grisly casualties as they try to defeat the Taliban resurgence and contain the growing threat of the Islamic group.
