KABUL: Afghan security forces on Monday were battling Taliban gunmen who stormed a building in the capital, Kabul, after a bomb-laden truck exploded near the defence ministry at rush hour, injuring at least 100 people, including 51 children, officials said.
Sporadic gunfire and explosions could be heard in the area where at least three gunman had entered a building near the defence ministry, a security official said.
Special forces cordoned off the area and had rescued 210 people so far, the Interior Ministry said.
“Gunmen have entered a building and they are clashing with the Afghan forces after the powerful blast,” said interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
“The target was the defence ministry’s technical installation,” the Islamist militants’ spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said in a statement.
Afghan security officials said the truck loaded with explosives was detonated near the ministry’s engineering and logistics department.
About 100 wounded people were taken to hospital, said health ministry spokesman Wahidullah Mayar, but there was no immediate word of fatalities.
Fifty-one children in two schools near the blast site were hurt by flying shards of glass, said Nooria Nazhat, a spokeswoman of the education ministry.
A security guard at Shamshad TV, a Pashto-language media organisation, was killed and several employees injured in their office near the blast site, said director Abid Ehsas.
The blast sent a plume of black smoke rising over the city and shook buildings.
The area has a cluster of military and government buildings, as well as an office of the Afghan Football Federation, whose chief, Yosuf Kargar, was among several members injured, according to spokesman Shafi Shadab.
The attack comes as U.S. special peace envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad holds a seventh round of peace talks with the Taliban Islamist militant group in Qatar, aimed at bringing an end to the 18-year war in Afghanistan.
The talks, described by one U.S. official as a “make-or-break moment”, have focused on issues ranging from counter-terrorism and withdrawal of foreign troops to an intra-Afghan dialogue and a comprehensive ceasefire. Two sources at the peace talks said direct negotiations between the warring sides was unlikely to go beyond Monday.
Sohail Shaheen, spokesman for the Taliban political office in Doha, said the group’s key concern was to make sure a timeline for foreign troop pullout is announced.
Taliban officials have previously said they want all foreign troops withdrawn before they hold talks with the Afghan government or declare a ceasefire.
Despite peace talks gaining momentum, fighting between the Taliban and Afghan forces who are backed by the foreign troops, has raged across Afghanistan.
The ministry of defence said on Monday 67 insurgents were killed in 11 provinces in the last 24 hours. The Taliban said their fighters had conducted 52 operations against Afghan forces in which more than 170 people were killed. Both side accuse each other of exaggerating casualty figures to boost the morale of their fighters. (Reuters)
