At least 68 killed in attacks in Afghanistan, Somalia
At least 68 people were killed in separate suicide bombing attacks in Afghanistan and Somalia over the weekend.
In Afghanistan, at least 23 people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in multiple suicide bombings and attacks yesterday, according to officials, the latest in a series of assaults in the war-torn country.
In the biggest attack, Taliban militants stormed an army base in the western province of Farah overnight, killing at least 18 soldiers.
“Last night, a big group of militants attacked an army base in Bala Buluk district of Farah. Unfortunately, we lost 18 soldiers, two soldiers were wounded. We have sent more reinforcements to the area,” Defense Ministry spokesman Daulat Wazir said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Deputy provincial governor Younus Rasooli said the authorities had sent a fact-finding delegation to Bala Buluk to investigate the assault.
In another attack, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near the diplomatic area of Kabul during the morning rush hour, killing at least three people and wounding five oth- ers, deputy interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi told AFP.
A security source who requested not to be named said the explosion happened near a compound belonging to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghan intelligence agency. The NDS compound is located near the NATO headquarters and the US embassy.
Meanwhile, in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu, twin car bombs killed at least 45 people last Friday in an attack by the Islamist militant group al Shabaab, but security forces shot dead five assailants, a senior government official said yesterday.
“The death toll from (Friday night’s) blasts has risen to 45, and 36 others were injured,” the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Separately, a police officer said he was sure of 36 deaths.
Shooting broke out near the president’s residence at the time of the explosions, police and ambulance services said.
“So far we carried 18 dead people and 20 others injured from the blasts,” Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of Amin Ambulances, told Reuters.
Police said the first car bomb went off after militants breached a checkpoint near the president’s residence by shooting at security personnel. The second blast was a car bomb parked in front of a hotel away from the palace.