Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul kills 24, hurts 42
Woman who ran IT at mining ministry among those slain.
The intensity of the violence in Afghanistan’s capital this year is taking an unusual toll on young and educated Afghans.
From a dusty village in central Afghanistan, where life
depends on the almond harvest, Najiba Hussaini made it far.
Graduating at the top of her high school class, she won a scholarship to earn a degree in computer applications in India, and she went on to the port city of Kobe in Japan to receive a master’s degree in information systems.
Last fall, Hussaini, 28, returned to lead the data- base unit at Afghanistan’s mining ministry, develop
ing applications to digitize an old bureaucracy that is crucial to the country’s economic future.
Her life and dreams were cut short Monday morning as she was making her way to work. A Taliban suicide bomber detonated a vehi-
cle full of explosives in west- ern Kabul, killing at least 24 people and wounding
another 42, according to Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry. Another senior secu- rity official put the number of dead at 38.
As has become routine after such large blasts in Kabul, family members searched for hours for news of loved ones, going from hospital to hospital.
Many of the bodies, including Hussaini’s, were badly burned.
“We identified her from her ring — silver, with a tur- quoise-colored stone,” said Hussain Rezaie, who was to be formally engaged to Hussaini within weeks.
He said he had already traveled to Shahristan district, in Daikundi, to seek
the approval of Hussaini’s parents.
Preparations for the engagement were in place,
and the couple expected to go to Daikundi in a few weeks and make the engage
ment official. Instead, Hussaini’s charred body, tied to the top of a small van, set off on the treacherous 18-hour journey from Kabul to Shahristan. The vehicle, with Rezaie and Hussaini’s other loved ones on board, was to travel all night, making its way on dirt roads through patches of Taliban country.
The United Nations says there have been more than 1,000 casualties, including about 220 deaths, in Kabul in the first six months of this year, an increase of more than 25 percent compared
with the same period in 2016. Most of the casualties were caused by suicide bombings in crowded areas, often in neighborhoods saturated with government and private offices. While Afghan civilians in
the countryside have suffered for years, the intensity of the violence in Kabul, the capital, this year is taking an unusual toll on young and educated Afghans.