Kabul Bombing Kills at Least 80, Shaking City Center: VIDEO
Kabul Bombing Kills at Least 80, Shaking City Center
A wounded man at the site of a truck bombing in Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Wednesday. The attack appeared to be one of the bloodiest of the country’s long war. Credit Omar Sobhani/Reuters
By MUJIB MASHAL and FAHIM ABEDMAY 31, 2017
KABUL, Afghanistan — A truck bombing near the Afghan presidential palace early Wednesday killed at least 80 people and wounded hundreds, officials said. The death toll seemed certain to rise, and the attack appeared to be one of the bloodiest of the long Afghan war.
The huge blast during the morning rush hour caused panic in much of central Kabul, shattering windows as far as a mile away. Nearly two hours after the explosion near Zanbaq Square, a crowded area in the capital that leads to the presidential palace as well as major foreign embassies, plumes of smoke were still rising from the scene.
Kabul’s police chief, Gen. Hassan Shah Frogh, said the explosives had been in a tanker truck used to empty septic wells. The bomb was detonated near the square just as the street turns toward the German Embassy, he said.
“The blast was so huge that it dug a big crater as deep as four meters,” or 13 feet, General Frogh said.
After the blast, emergency personnel tried to evacuate victims. Hundreds of people were wounded and taken to hospitals. Credit Mohammad Ismail/Reuters
Wahidullah Majrooh, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, said that 80 bodies and 350 wounded people had been brought to hospitals.
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The German Embassy suffered extensive damage, with dozens of windows blown in, the public broadcaster ARD reported. It broadcast images showing stunned civilians pressing makeshift bandages to bloody limbs, stumbling through a smoke-filled street as ambulances rushed to the scene, their sirens blaring.
Germany’s foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said that an Afghan security guard employed by the embassy had been killed. He also said that several Germans had been wounded, without providing details. He condemned what he called an attack on “those who are in Afghanistan working with the people there for a better future.”
“To target these people is especially despicable,” Mr. Gabriel said.
But there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, and it was unclear whether the embassy had been specifically targeted.
President Ashraf Ghani called the attack “a crime against humanity.” A statement by Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan, applauded the Afghan security forces for preventing the truck full of explosives from entering the Green Zone, a reference to the area that houses the headquarters of the coalition forces as well as several foreign embassies.
“The attack demonstrates a complete disregard for civilians and reveals the barbaric nature of the enemy faced by the Afghan people,” the statement said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/world/asia/kabul-explosion-afghanistan.html?_r=0
