{UAH} Afghanistan blast: huge car bomb kills at least 80 in Kabul's diplomatic quarter
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10:07 AM |
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Afghanistan blast: BBC driver killed and four journalists injured after huge car bomb kills at least 80 in Kabul's diplomatic quarter
Asuspected Islamic State (Isil) truck bomb tore through the diplomatic quarter of Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least 90 people including a BBC driver and badly damaging the German embassy.
If confirmed that Isil was behind the bombing, it would mark a significant escalation of the jihadists' violence in Afghanistan and the latest in a string of deadly attacks at the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
The massive explosive was hidden inside a sewage tank on the back of a truck and went off during the morning rush hour, wounding around 400 people and leaving a large crater. The attack was one of the deadliest in Kabul since the US-led invasion in 2001.
The explosion killed Mohammed Nazir, an Afghan driver for the BBC, and wounded four BBC journalists as they drove towards their Kabul bureau.
"Shocking news of death of BBC Kabul driver Mohammed Nazir in [Isil] bomb. A good, decent, brave man's life snuffed out for no reason," said John Simpson, the BBC's world affairs editor.
Britain's embassy in Kabul suffered minor damage but remains operational and no staff were injured. No British troops were caught up in the blast. "It felt like an earthquake," said Mohammad Hassan, a 21-year-old bank worker who was injured in the bombing.
The bomb went off close to the Germany embassy, killing an Afghan security guard and wounding a German diplomat and an Afghan employee of the embassy. Windows at the embassy were blown out and many of the rooms facing the blast appeared badly damaged.
RIP Mohammad Nazeer, our Kabul Bureau colleague who was killed in today's attack. Nazeer was 39 and leaves behind 4 children and a wife twitter.com/bbcpashto/stat…
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, condemned the bombing and said terrorism "targets all of us - whether in Manchester or Berlin, Paris, Istanbul, St Petersburg or today in Kabul".
Germany announced it would temporarily halt deportations of failed Afghan asylum seekers because its diplomats at the embassy would not be able to process them. The government said the pause was not a change in policy and it believed Kabul was still safe to send asylum seekers back to.
Afghan officials said the German embassy may not have been the target and that the attackers may have been forced to detonate the bomb prematurely because they were not able to get the tanker into the heart of the diplomatic "Green Zone" in Kabul.
The Taliban denied responsibility for the bombing, placing suspicion for the attack on the Afghan branch of Isil, known as Khorasan Province.
The group claimed responsibility for an attack in March which killed around 50 people when gunmen disguised as doctors assaulted a military hospital in Kabul. Succeeding in detonating a large exploding close to foreign embassies would be a significant step up in the group's capabilities.
In April the US dropped the "mother of all bombs" - its largest explosive short of a nuclear weapon - on an Afghan tunnel complex used by Khorasan Province. It was not clear the bomb did much to disrupt the group's operations.
Isil killed at least 27 people in a pair of bombings in Baghdad on Monday and Tuesday, marking a bloody start to Ramadan.
Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary said: "Appalled by Kabul explosion today during Ramadan. I condemn those behind this cruel attack. We stand with Afghanistan against terrorism."
Other world leaders from the Pope to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau joined in the condemnation.
The offices of several Western media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Agence France Presse were damaged.
Embassies damaged
Manpreet Vohra, India's envoy to Afghanistan, told the Times Now television channel the bomb went off around 100 metres from India's embassy, one of several in the area.
"We are all safe, all our staff, all our personnel are safe. However, the blast was very large and nearby buildings, including our own building, have considerable damage in terms of broken glass and shattered windows and blown doors etc," he said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: "We strongly condemn the terrorist blast in Kabul. Our thoughts are with the families of the deceased & prayers with the injured."
The explosion also shattered windows at the Japanese embassy. "Two Japanese embassy staffers were mildly injured, suffering cuts," a foreign ministry official in Tokyo told AFP. France also reported damage to its own embassy and the German one. There was no information on possible casualties.
Pentagon chief Jim Mattis has warned of "another tough year" for both foreign troops and local forces in Afghanistan. Afghan troops are backed by US and NATO forces, and the Pentagon has reportedly asked the White House to send thousands more troops to the country to break the deadlock in the fight against the Taliban.
The number of US troops in Afghanistan total around 8,400, and there are another 5,000 from NATO allies. They mainly serve in an advisory capacity - a far cry from the US presence of more than 100,000 six years ago.
The blast was the latest in a long line of attacks in Kabul. The province surrounding the capital had the highest number of casualties in the first three months of 2017 due to multiple attacks in the city, with civilians bearing the brunt of the violence.
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