Afghan blast ‘targets journalists’ as at least 25 people die in Kabul
● 11 children killed, Nato soldiers hurt in second attack in Kandahar
A co-ordinated double suicide bombing by the Islamic State group hit central Kabul, killing at least 25 people, including nine Afghan journalists.
A reporter for the BBC was also killed in a shooting in the east of the country as a spate of attacks appeared to be targetting journalists.
Ahmad Shah, 29, had been working for the BBC Afghan service for more than a year.
Khost police chief Abdul Hanan said Shah had been shot by unidentified armed men. He said police were investigating the motive.
In the capital, an AFP photographer, a cameraman for the local Tolo TV station and several reporters for the Afghan branch of Radio Free Europe were among the fatalities of the blast, police said.
At least 45 people were wounded in the twin attacks, the latest in a relentless string of deadly large-scale bombings and assaults that have struck Afghanistan this year.
And even as the Afghan capital reeled from yesterday’s assault, a suicide car bombing a few hours later in the southern province of Kandahar killed 11 children, a police spokesman said. Eight Romanian Nato soldiers were wounded in that bombing.
In a statement posted on an Is-affiliated website, the Islamic State group said two “martyrdom seekers” carried out the Kabul bombings, targeting the headquarters of the “renegade” Afghan intelligence services. The blasts took place in the central Shash Darak area, home to Nato headquarters and a number of embassies and foreign offices as well as the Afghan intelligence service.
A police spokesman said the first suicide bomber was on a motor bike while the second explosion meant to hit those scrambling to help the victims of the first blast.
The second attacker was on foot, in a crowd of reporters rushing to the site of the first attack, pretending to be one of the media, the spokesman said.
Agence France-presse said the news agency’s chief photographer in Kabul, Shah Marai, was among those killed. AFP said Marai died in a blast that struck journalists who had rushed to the scene of the earlier attack.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said along with the nine journalists killed, six were wounded. Witnesses recounted scenes of mayhem.
Jawed Ghulam Sakhi, a 28-year-old a taxi driver said “it was such a horrific scene” with bodies and body parts “thrown about on the street and the pavement”.
“I saw journalists covered with blood, this time they targeted the media,” Sakhi added.
Masouda, a young woman who was with her husband nearby, assailed the authorities. Her husband was wounded. “I don’t know who is responsible for all these attacks, every day we lose our loved ones and no one in this government is taking responsibility for the killing of these innocent people,” she said.
Afghan president Ashraf Ghani condemned the attacks. The presidential palace released a statement saying that attacks targeting innocent civilians, worshippers inside mosques, national and democratic processes, reporters and freedom of speech all are war crimes.
Kabul chief of police Dawood Amin said the area hit was quickly sealed off and authorities were investigating. Mohammad Mousa Zahir, director of Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital, said several people suffering injuries from the blasts were being treated at his hospital.
In its claim of responsibility, the Afghan affiliate of IS, known as Khorasan Province, said the first martyrdom seeker detonated his explosive vest near the intelligence service in central Kabul, forcing officers to head to the area of the explosion. The statement said the second attacker detonated his explosives vest after that.