DEATH TOLL IN KABUL TALIBAN ATTACK SHARPLY RISES TO 64

KABUL: The death toll from a Taliban suicide attack in Kabul has more than doubled to 64, officials said on Wednesday, making it the deadliest militant assault in the Afghan capital for years.

The attack on Tuesday on a security services office in the heart of Kabul is seen as the opening salvo in this year’s Taliban spring offensive.

A powerful Taliban truck bomb tore through central Kabul and a fierce firefight broke out, sending clouds of smoke billowing into the sky and rattling windows several kilometres away.

“It is with regret that I announce that 64 people were killed and 347 others wounded in yesterday’s Kabul attack,” ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told reporters.

The ministry had earlier put the death toll at 30.

“The victims of (the) terrorist attack are all fathers, brothers or children of people,” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Twitter.

The Taliban claimed three “martyrdom seekers” carried out an attack on the National Directorate of Security, the main spy agency. One of them, it said, managed to slip away alive.

Afghan authorities insisted the building, used by NDS in the past, housed an elite security agency charged with protecting top government officials.

Mourners in Kabul held emotionally charged funerals on Wednesday for the victims, one of the deadliest in Kabul for years.

“The government is unable to stop these attacks on the people,” said Abdul Basir Mobasher, relative of a security official who was killed in the attack.