Suicide bomber attacks Afghan rally, 32 killed
Jalalabad, Sept. 11: A suicide attack on protesters in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday killed at least 32 people, officials said.
There were chaotic scenes at several hospitals as medical workers struggled to treat 128 people wounded by the powerful blast in Nangarhar province.
The attack came hours after a double bombing in front of a girls’ school in the provincial capital Jalalabad, which killed a boy and wounded four others.
Kabul, Sept. 11: A suicide bomber detonated his explosives- filled vest among a group of people protesting a local police commander in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing 32 and wounding about 130, a provincial official said.
“Around four hundred people gathered for the protest and the bomber detonated his vest full of explosive among the crowd,” said Capt. Qais Saifi, an official at Nangarhar province police headquarters.
Gen. Ghulam Sanayee Stanikzai, police chief of Nangarhar province, said people from Achin district had come to the Momandara district to block the main highway between the capital Jalalabad and the Torkham border with Pakistan.
Stanikzai said locals had gathered to complain about a local police commander and the suicide bomber targeted them. It was unclear whether the attacker knew the nature of the protest.
Also in Nangarhar, at least one person was killed and four others wounded in a series of additional bomb blasts near different schools, said Attahullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor.
Khogyani said the first bomb detonated near a school in the provincial capital Jalalabad.