01-27-2018 , 10:40 PM
https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/news...676989.cms KABUL AMBULANCE BLAST: DEATH TOLL FROM TALIBAN ATTACK RISES TO 95
Reuters | Updated: Jan 28, 2018, 02.00 AM IST A bomb hidden in an ambulance killed at least 95 people and wounded about 158 in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday when it blew up at a police checkpoint. It came just days after a deadly attack on one of the most prominent hotels in the city. The Taliban claimed responsibility for Saturday's suicide blast. They also claimed the attack on the Intercontinental Hotel a week earlier in which more than 20 people were killed.
An interior ministry spokesman blamed the Haqqani network, a militant group affiliated with the Taliban which Afghan and Western officials consider to be behind many of the biggest attacks on urban targets in Afghanistan. Mirwais Yasini, a member of parliament who was nearby when the explosion occurred, said an ambulance approached the checkpoint and blew up. The target was apparently an interior ministry building nearby.
Buildings hundreds of metres away were shaken by the force of the blast, which left torn bodies strewn on the street amid piles of rubble, debris and wrecked cars. Saturday is a working day in Afghanistan and the streets were full when the blast went off at around lunchtime in a busy part of the city near a number of foreign embassies and government buildings.
As medical teams struggled to handle the casualties pouring in, some of the wounded were laid out in the open, with intravenous drips set up next to them in hospital gardens. The latest attack will add pressure on President Ashraf Ghani and his US allies, who have expressed growing confidence that a new more aggressive military strategy has succeeded in driving Taliban insurgents back from major provincial centres. :( :@
Reuters | Updated: Jan 28, 2018, 02.00 AM IST A bomb hidden in an ambulance killed at least 95 people and wounded about 158 in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday when it blew up at a police checkpoint. It came just days after a deadly attack on one of the most prominent hotels in the city. The Taliban claimed responsibility for Saturday's suicide blast. They also claimed the attack on the Intercontinental Hotel a week earlier in which more than 20 people were killed.
An interior ministry spokesman blamed the Haqqani network, a militant group affiliated with the Taliban which Afghan and Western officials consider to be behind many of the biggest attacks on urban targets in Afghanistan. Mirwais Yasini, a member of parliament who was nearby when the explosion occurred, said an ambulance approached the checkpoint and blew up. The target was apparently an interior ministry building nearby.
Buildings hundreds of metres away were shaken by the force of the blast, which left torn bodies strewn on the street amid piles of rubble, debris and wrecked cars. Saturday is a working day in Afghanistan and the streets were full when the blast went off at around lunchtime in a busy part of the city near a number of foreign embassies and government buildings.
As medical teams struggled to handle the casualties pouring in, some of the wounded were laid out in the open, with intravenous drips set up next to them in hospital gardens. The latest attack will add pressure on President Ashraf Ghani and his US allies, who have expressed growing confidence that a new more aggressive military strategy has succeeded in driving Taliban insurgents back from major provincial centres. :( :@