The attack mainly killed employees of the Afghan ministry of mines and petroleum, according to Kabul police

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The Taliban have killed at least 38 people and wounded dozens more in a suicide bomb attack against a bus carrying government employees in the Afghan capital, Kabul, according to officials.

The attack happened in the western part of the city during rush hour, and mainly killed employees of the Afghan ministry of mines and petroleum, according to Kabul police.

The Taliban, in a statement taking responsibility for the attack, claimed to have targeted a bus carrying personnel working for the government intelligence agency. However, the Afghan government said their intelligence staff never travelled in minibuses.

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The attack comes after a large popular demonstration, planned for Monday, was cancelled one day prior due to security threats.



A previous protest, exactly one year ago, organised by the so-called Enlightenment Movement, a coalition of civil society activists fighting for better rights for the Hazara minority, was attacked by suicide bombers who killed at least 80 people.

Isis claimed responsibility for last year’s attack.

Monday’s protest was cancelled after organisers met on Sunday with president Ashraf Ghani, his national security adviser and the deputy interior minister, General Ali Murad, himself a Hazara.

It was unclear whether the attacker had initially intended to target the protesters, but a Western official said reports suggested that he had been, and was re-directed to “a target of opportunity” when the demonstration was cancelled.

The bomb went off close to the home of Mohammad Mohaqeq, a prominent Hazara politician and deputy to the government’s chief executive.

Basir Mujahed, spokesman of Kabul police, said most of the victims were staff of the ministry of mines and petroleum.

The Afghan Taliban have been ramping up its warm weather offensive across the country. Last week, the militants attacked eight district centres around the country in just two days. Over the weekend, they captured Kohistan in Faryab province and Taywara in Ghor province.

In Ghor, the militants stormed a district hospital, killing up to six injured policemen and damaging part of the hospital, according to local security officials.

Also last week, in the northeastern Badakhshan province, the Taliban killed at least 32 members of the local police and government-aligned uprising groups in a push to capture Tagab district.

On Thursday, the Taliban rammed three Humvee vehicles stolen from the Afghan army and laden with explosives into government security outposts in Helmand’s Gereshk district.

Following the attack, the militants claimed that one of the suicide bombers was the son of the group’s supreme leader, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhunzada.

Sources within the Taliban confirmed that the leader’s 23-year-old son, Abdur Rahman, known under his nom de guerre, Hafiz Khalid, had died in the attack.

That claim was not independently verified, and could be a propaganda attempt to rally the movement behind the leader, who inherited deep internal rifts when he took over leadership last year following the killing of his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, by a US drone.

1,662 civilians were killed in the Afghan conflict in the first half of 2017, a record-high according to the UN. The Afghan capital accounts for about 20% of all killed and injured civilians, surpassing even Helmand. While that number does not account for difficulties in reporting from some rural provinces, it is also a clear sign of increased violence in the capital.

The Afghan government believes Pakistan to be a key supporter of the Afghan insurgency.

On Saturday, the Pentagon announced that the US would withhold $50m in military reimbursements to Pakistan for failing to curb the Haqqani network, a hardline military wing of the Taliban.

Last year, the Obama administration withheld $300m.