KABUL (Dispatches) – A magnetic bomb attached to a minivan exploded in a Shia-majority area of the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, causing an unknown number of casualties, a Taliban official and local residents said.
The Taliban official, who declined to be named, said six people had been killed and at least seven wounded in the blast in the Dasht-e Barchi area of western Kabul, the latest in a series of attacks across Afghanistan in recent weeks.
There was no confirmation of casualty numbers and no immediate claim of responsibility. The area is heavily populated by Shia ethnic Hazaras who have been the target of repeated attacks by Daesh terrorists.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s main spokesman, said a fire had broken out in the Dasht-e Barchi area of western Kabul, killing at least one civilian and injuring two others. An investigation was underway, he said in a tweet.
A local man who gave his name as Ismael, said he had reached the area a few minutes after the explosion, which occurred a day after an attack on a mosque in eastern Afghanistan.
“When I arrived, I saw the big flames,” he said. “It was a minivan which was targeted by a sticky bomb.”
He said a friend who had helped carried wounded to a nearby hospital said at least three or four people had been killed.
Images shared on social media showed flames and a thick cloud of black smoke spiraling into the sky. At least two people suffered serious burn injuries, according to a director of a nearby hospital that specializes in burn cases.
The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, took power again on August 15 as the U.S. was in the middle of a chaotic troop withdrawal. The group announced the formation of a caretaker government on September 7.
The U.S. completed its withdrawal in late August, in what observers saw as a botched exit after a futile military adventure that had lasted 20 years.
Taliban’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi says the United States and NATO failed to bring peace and security to Afghanistan despite their presence in the country for two decades.
“Despite 50 nations, including the Americans and NATO, with their military, their technological power, present in Afghanistan for 20 years and with a lot of money that was poured in, still they failed to bring peace and security in Afghanistan, or eliminate the islands of power that existed in the country,” Muttaqi said on Friday.