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At least 95 people have been killed and 158 were wounded in a powerful suicide blast in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Waheed Majrooh, health ministry spokesman, confirmed the latest toll to Al Jazeera on Saturday.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the afternoon assault, with reports confirming that the explosion was close to an interior ministry building.
The group had hidden explosives in an ambulance vehicle, which was detonated near the ministry’s entrance close to the busy Sadarat Square – a diplomatic area – during rush hour.
Government offices, businesses, a school and the Jamhuriat Hospital hospital are close to the site of attack.
The driver passed through one checkpoint by claiming to be escorting a patient to the hospital. He set off the explosives at the second checkpoint.
Following the blast, huge plumes of dark smoke rose above the city.
Emergency vehicles rushed to the city centre, TOLO news reported.
The vibrations of the attack could be felt several kilometres away.
Hospitals are struggling to keep up with demand.
| An injured man receives medical assistance [Mohammad Ismail/Reuters] |
“I was near the interior ministry to get some work done. As soon as I stepped out, I looked back and saw a huge blast in the middle of two checkpoints in the diplomatic area,” Ahmed Naweed, an eyewitness, told Al Jazeera.
“It was near the Jamhuriat Hospital. The suicide bomber had managed to pass the first checkpoint.
“There were many dead bodies and blood everywhere. People were crying and screaming and running away.”
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| A huge plume of smoke rose above Kabul [Al Jazeera] |
The incident comes a week after a Taliban-claimed attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in the city, which left 18 dead, and days after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) killed at least three people at the office of Save the Children in Jalalabad.
Al Jazeera’s Abdullah Shahood, reporting from Kabul, said the blast took place at lunchtime during a “relatively calm day”.
“The city was jolted with a heavy explosion,” he said.
#Kabul. Over 70 wounded, 7 dead on arrival transferred at @emergency_ong hospital after the attack. “It’s a massacre”, said Dejan Panic, coordinator in@#Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/IZ2FFMO11Y
— EMERGENCY (@emergency_ong) January 27, 2018
Dejan Panic, coordinator at a hospital run by the Emergency NGO, said: “It’s a massacre.”
The organisation tweeted a photo of a makeshift medical ward, with patients being attended to on the floor.
At least seven people were dead on arrival, Emergency said.
Abdullah Fahimi, a Kabul-based researcher, told Al Jazeera that the attack could be in response to the government’s recent efforts to pound the Taliban in remote areas, in addition to recent US sanctions on its members.
Fahimi explained: “This is an impasse, neither side is winning. The [Taliban] group is not going to surrender or give up, they want to take more areas, territories.”
On Friday, the administration of US President Donald Trump sanctioned four Taliban and two Haqqani network leaders “who have been involved in attacks on coalition troops, smuggling of individuals, or financing these terrorist groups”, said Sigal Mandelker, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, a position within the US treasury department.
With reporting by Al Jazeera’s Shereena Qazi: @ShereenaQazi
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