Monitoring Desk
KABUL: At least 20 casualties are feared as a suicide bomber blew himself up in Kabul near the foreign ministry of Afghanistan, where a Chinese delegation had been scheduled to meet on Wednesday, witnesses and Taliban officials said.
The Taliban administration claims to have improved security since returning to power in 2021; however, there have been scores of attacks and bomb blasts, several claimed by the local chapter of the Islamic State (IS) group.
A company driver waiting outside the ministry saw a man with a backpack and rifle slung over his shoulder walk past before the suicide bomber blew himself up.
“He passed by my car, and within seconds, there was a huge blast,” said Jamshed Karimi.
A spokesman of Kabul police, Khalid Zadran, confirmed the blast “which unfortunately caused casualties.”
Blasts in Afghanistan
“Security teams have reached the blast site,” he tweeted.
In the aftermath, dead bodies lay strewn on the road outside the ministry’s high-walled compound could be seen in a video verified by AFP.
Some wounded people writhed on the ground, screaming for help, and a large number of people scrambled to offer help.
The foreign ministry building did not appear badly damaged by the blast.
“A Chinese delegation was scheduled to arrive at the ministry today, but we do not know if they were present at the time of the explosion,” Deputy Minister of Information and Culture Muhajer Farahi said.
At least five Chinese nationals were injured last month when shooters stormed a hotel popular with Chinese businessmen in Kabul.
That attack was claimed by IS, who also took responsibility for the attack on Pakistan’s Embassy in Kabul in December that Islamabad condemned as an “assassination attempt” against their head mission.
Four people were killed and 25 injured in an attack on a mosque on the grounds of the interior ministry in Kabul in October, with survivors reporting it was a suicide blast.
