KABUL (Dispatches) – At least 11 civilians including four women and three children were killed when a roadside bomb struck a bus in Afghanistan, officials said Sunday, in the latest attack targeting passenger vehicles in the violence-wracked country.
The attack occurred on Saturday evening in the western province of Badghis, raising fears of fresh violence in the months ahead.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast but Badghis governor Hessamuddin Shams accused the Taliban of planting the bomb.
Another official from the province, Khodadad Tayeb, confirmed the toll and said that the bus fell into a valley after it was hit by the bomb.
Saturday’s attack came after a series of blasts targeted passenger buses in Kabul this week.
The Daesh terrorist group claimed two back-to-back attacks on buses in Kabul.
Violence has soared in recent weeks as government forces and the Taliban clash in near-daily battles across the rugged countryside, with the militants appearing to focus on capturing new territory and battering checkpoints and bases near Kabul.
More than a dozen Afghan security forces have been killed and dozens of others held captive after the Taliban attacked a police headquarters in southwestern Afghanistan.
The militants raided the police HQ in Qaisar district of the Faryab province on Saturday night, killing at least 14 security forces, said Nader Saeedi, a member of the provincial council.
He said that the Taliban “have taken 37 security force members as captive” after laying siege to the police headquarters.
Saeedi called for reinforcements to be deployed to the area, warning that the militants could capture “more than 30 other security forces” who are under siege.
The sharp rise in attacks comes after the United States missed a withdrawal deadline it had agreed with the Taliban in Doha last year.
All foreign troops were supposed to have been withdrawn by May 1, but U.S. President Joe Biden last month pushed that date back to September 11. The decision caused the talks between the Taliban and Kabul to be suspended.
The Taliban warned that the passing of the May 1 deadline for a complete withdrawal “opened the way for” the militants to take every counteraction they deemed appropriate against foreign forces in the country.