Kabul // The death toll from a Taliban suicide attack in Kabul rose sharply from 28 to 64, the Afghan interior ministry said on Wednesday, making it the deadliest militant assault in the Afghan capital for years.
The brazen attack on Tuesday on a security services office in the heart of Kabul is seen as the opening salvo in this year’s Taliban spring offensive, launched last week.
Gen Abdul Rahman Rahimi, Kabul’s police chief, said on Wednesday that two investigative teams have been appointed to investigate the attack in Kabul. He added that most of the casualties were civilians, including women and children.
A powerful Taliban truck bomb tore through central Kabul and a fierce firefight broke out, sending clouds of smoke billowing into the sky and rattling windows several kilometres away.
It targeted the National Directorate of Security, the main spy agency that provides protection for high-ranking government officials. A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden truck outside the compound, and a pair of gunmen entered the compound in the aftermath before being killed.
“It is with regret that I announce that 64 people were killed and 347 others wounded in yesterday’s Kabul attack,” ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said. “Most of them are civilians.”
“The victims of [the] terrorist attack are all fathers, brothers or children of people,” Afghan president Ashraf Ghani said on Twitter.
“We will avenge every drop of Afghan blood.”
The Taliban claimed three “martyrdom seekers” carried out an attack. One of them, it said, managed to slip away alive.
Mourners in Kabul held emotionally charged funerals on Wednesday for the victims of the attack, one of the deadliest in Kabul for years.
“The government is unable to stop these attacks on the people,” said Abdul Basir Mobasher, a relative of a security official who was killed in the attack.
“The people will be forced to rise up in revolt if these attacks don’t stop.”
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
