WORLD Aussies’ close call Bomb near Kabul embassy

AFGHANISTAN: A car bomb has exploded near Australian Embassy vehicles travelling in Kabul, killing a young girl and wounding 22 people, Afghan officials said.

No Australians were injured in the attack, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

“The Australian Government extends its sympathies to families and friends of people killed and injured by this attack,” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement.

The explosion took place on Friday about 9am local time (4pm AEDT) near a vehicle belonging to “foreign” workers in the eastern part of the city, Najib Danish, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said. A 12-year-old girl was killed. Afghanistan’s interior ministry confirmed the attack was a suicide bombing against “foreign forces”.

The blast occurred in the neighbourhood of Qabil Bay, in an area home to a police sta- tion, government customs offices and some guesthouses.

The Interior Ministry said the suicide bomber targeted a “convoy of foreigners” but did not offer further details or clarify whether foreign forces were targeted or contractors.

The injured included five children and two women.

NATO forces in Kabul confirmed the attack was a suicide car bombing. No militant group claimed responsibility.

Kabul has recently seen a spate of large-scale militant attacks by the Taliban and also the Islamic State group, whose affiliate in Afghanistan has grown stronger since it emerged in 2014.

In late January, a Taliban attacker drove an ambulance filled with explosives into the heart of the city, killing at least 103 people and wounding as many as 235.

The Taliban claimed the ambulance attack, as well as an attack a week earlier in which militants stormed a luxury hotel in Kabul, killing 22.