24 civilians killed, 42 wounded in Kabul terror attack

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ASTANA. KAZINFORM At least 24 civilians were killed and another 42 wounded on Monday in a suicide car-bomb attack near a residential area in western Kabul, EFE reports.

The explosive-laden vehicle blew up shortly before 7 am in a street in Police District 3 in the western part of the Afghan capital, Interior Ministry spokesperson Najib Danish told EFE.

The spokesperson announced on his official Facebook page that at least 24 people had died and 42 were injured, all of them civilians.

According to Danish, three vehicles and 15 shops were also seriously damaged in the explosion.

Although the place where the blast took place is near the residential area where Afghan government officials live, the attack mainly affected shops and buildings that lined the sides of the road.

No armed group has claimed the attack so far.

There have been a series of deadly attacks in Kabul in recent months, including a truck-bomb attack on May 31 in which 150 people were killed and over 300 wounded, the deadliest attack in Kabul since the invasion by United States-led forces in 2001.

Most of the casualties in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan have been civilians.

Last week, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan announced in a report that the conflict caused a record number of civilian deaths in the first six months of 2017, when a total of 1,662 civilians were killed, two percent more than in 2016.

The UN agency's report also says that the number of minor victims rose by 9 percent while the number of women victims rose by 23 percent.

Since the number of civilian victims began to be counted in January 2009, the UN says 26,500 civilians have been killed, and 49,000 injured.

 

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