Kabul Mourns 100 Dead After Ambulance Bomb

More than 100 people are now known to have been killed in a suicide bombing on Saturday in Kabul.

Attackers drove an ambulance past a police checkpoint to get to a crowded street in a district full of government buildings and embassies.

Afghanistan’s government has declared a day of mourning for Sunday, as funerals take place and relatives search hospitals for survivors.

The Taliban – a hardline Islamist group – said it was behind the attack.

It was the deadliest attack in Afghanistan for months and took place a week after an attack on a Kabul hotel in which 22 people were killed.

Interior minister Wais Barmak said a number of people died in hospital overnight and the death toll now stood at 103, with 235 wounded. Most of the injured are men.

What happened in the latest attack?

Witnesses say the area – also home to offices of the European Union, a hospital and a shopping zone known as Chicken Street – was crowded with people when the bomb exploded on Saturday at about 12:15 local time (08:45 GMT).

Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, said the attacker got through a security checkpoint after telling police he was taking a patient to nearby Jamhuriat hospital.

He detonated the bomb at a second checkpoint, said Mr Rahimi.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the use of an ambulance was “harrowing”.

A Taliban spokesman later linked the attack to US efforts to assist Afghan forces with troops and air strikes.

In a statement, Zabihullah Mujahid said: “If you go ahead with a policy of aggression and speak from the barrel of a gun, don’t expect Afghans to grow flowers in response.”

Source: BBC