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Kabul rocked by explosion as Taliban begin 'spring offensive' Kabul rocked by explosion as Taliban begin spring offensive
(about 1 hour later)
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for an explosion that rocked central Kabul early on Tuesday, leaving a thick plume of black smoke rising from the vicinity of the sprawling US embassy in the Afghan capital. Several people have been killed and dozens injured after a Taliban car bomb exploded in central Kabul early on Tuesday, targeting a crowded area home to ministries and government offices, followed by gun battles between attackers and security forces.
President Ashraf Ghani said a number of people were killed and wounded in the blast that apparently targeted the offices of Afghanistan’s main security agency.
An Afghan official says a possible suicide bomber carried out the attack. Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry, said the explosion was followed by gunfire, and the area has been surrounded by security forces.
Related: Taliban announce start of spring offensive in AfghanistanRelated: Taliban announce start of spring offensive in Afghanistan
The blast took place shortly before 9am local time, during the morning rush hour, when a car laden with explosives went off outside the office of a security detail responsible for protecting Afghan government VIPs and officials, according to police sources.
The explosion ripped through the city, rattling windows several kilometres away, and was followed by gunfire as attackers took cover in nearby buildings.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the militant group claimed responsibility for the attack.Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the militant group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The powerful explosion came during the morning rush hour, a week after the Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive. The tally of casualties was not yet clear, but a spokesman for the ministry of public health, Ismail Kawusi, told the Guardian that 161 injured people had been brought to five or six hospitals in the city. He did not know how many of them were civilians. Reuters cited the health ministry saying at least 200 people were wounded, and “several” had been killed.
A Reuters witness near the scene also reported hearing gunfire more than half an hour after the blast. Kabul police also reported some gunfire immediately after the blast. Emergency, an Italian-run hospital for war wounded in Kabul, said it had so far received 18 casualties, most of them security forces, and most lightly injured. Luca Radaelli, Emergency’s medical coordinator, said numbers could rise because evacuating victims was difficult as long as fighting in the area was on-going.
Several major Afghan security agencies are based in the area, including the national directorate of security. The ministry of defence and the presidential palace are also within a few hundred metres. In a statement, the Presidential Palace said: “President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani condemned the terrorist attack in Pule Mahmood Khan area, Kabul, which martyred and injured a number of Afghan innocent civilians, in strongest terms.”
Warning sirens blared out from the US embassy compound, which is also close to the headquarters of the main Nato-led mission in Afghanistan. There was no indication of the source of the blast, but rocket attacks remain relatively common in the city. The attack comes after the Taliban last week announced the beginning of its annual spring offensive. The Afghan government, backed by its international allies, has for months tried to convince the insurgents to restart peace talks, but so far to no avail.
The US embassy said it was not affected by the blast. The Nato military coalition also said it was unaffected. While the spring fighting season normally heralds intensified attacks across the country, the past winter was unusually violent, with sustained Taliban offensives around the country and several attacks on the capital.
The blast rattled windows several miles away and sent a plume of thick smoke rising in the sky. In January, the Taliban attacked a restaurant in Kabul frequented by foreigners and affluent Afghans, killing a guard and a 12-year-old boy. Later that month, the militant group killed seven employees of TOLO TV in an attack on one of the media group’s buses.
The Presidential Palace said in a statement that it condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms”. On Sunday, the UN released a report documenting a slight increase in civilian casualties in the first three months of 2016, compared with the same period last year.
A spokesman for an emergency hospital in the city said the facility had received eight lightly wounded Afghan soldiers. The report also showed that while the Taliban have scaled down their use of improvised explosive devices and targeted killings, the militants increasingly resort to complex and suicide attacks in populated areas, like the attack on Tuesday morning.
The Afghan Taliban last Tuesday announced the start of their so-called spring offensive, even as the government in Kabul seeks to bring the insurgents back to the negotiating table to end their drawn-out conflict.
The Taliban warned they would “employ large-scale attacks on enemy positions across the country” during the offensive, dubbed Operation Omari in honour of the movement’s late founder Mullah Omar, whose death was announced last year.
The annual spring offensive normally marks the start of the fighting season, though this winter the lull was shorter and the Taliban continued to battle government forces, albeit with less intensity.
This is a developing news story. Please check back for more details.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.