Twin blasts in Afghan capital kill at least 26

KABUL: Explosions in the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday killed at least 26 people reports yesterday said, including nine journalists who had arrived to report on an initial blast and were apparently targeted by a suicide bomber, officials said.

The attacks, a week after 60 people were killed as they waited at a voter registration centre in the city, underlined mounting insecurity despite repeated government pledges to tighten defences.

Hours after the attack in Kabul, a suicide bomber in a

vehicle attacked a foreign military convoy in the southern province of Kandahar, killing 11 children studying in a nearby religious school, police said.

‘‘These attacks caused untold human suffering to Afghan families,’’ said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the top UN official in Afghanistan.

‘‘I am furthermore outraged by the attack which appears to have deliberately targeted journalists,’’ he said in a statement.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the ‘‘senseless and barbaric’’ bombings in Kabul.

The attacks in rapid succession were a grim reminder of the strength of both the Taliban and Islamic State’s emerging Afghanistan branch to wreak violence despite stepped up US air attacks under Trump’s new policy for the 16yearold war.

Taliban militants, fighting to restore their version of strict Islamic law to Afghanistan, announced their usual spring offensive last week and there has been heavy fighting in several areas of the country since.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the two blasts in the capital, which killed at least 26 people, including four police, and wounded 49 seriously, Hashmat Stanekzai, a senior police official, said. — Reuters