Twin suicide blasts in Kabul

KABUL: Twin blasts in the Afghan capital Kabul killed at least 25 people yesterday, including eight journalists who had arrived to report on the first explosion and who were apparently targeted by a suicide bomber, officials said.

Several hours later, a suicide bomber in a vehicle attacked foreign military forces in the southern province of Kandahar, killing 11 children studying in a nearby religious school, police said.

The Afghan Journalists Safety Committee said eight journalists were killed in Kabul, the worst toll for media workers in a single attack in the country.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the two blasts in the capital, which senior Kabul police official Hashmat Stanakzai said killed 25 people with 49 seriously wounded.

The attacks came a week after 60 people were killed as they waited at a voter registration centre in the west of Kabul, underlining insecurity in the capital despite repeated official pledges to tighten defences.

The journalists, including a female correspondent, all Afghan nationals, were killed in

the second blast in Kabul as they waited by a security cordon, several hundred metres away from the site of the first one.

In the southern city of Kandahar, where Natoled forces operate out of a big air base, 11 children were killed and 16 wounded when a suicide bomber drove his explosiveladen van into a foreignforce convoy, police said.

No militant group claimed responsibility for the Kandahar blast. — Reuters