At Least 28 Dead And Hundreds Injured In Kabul Suicide Bombing

Omar Sobhani / Reuters

A suicide car bomber attacked near the Afghan Defense Ministry in Kabul on Tuesday morning, killing 28 people and injuring at least 327.

The blast, outside a building in the Puli-Mahmood Khan neighborhood that houses security forces protecting Afghan VIPs and officials, was felt throughout the city shortly before 9 a.m.

Ministry of Public Health spokesman Ismail Kawosi said 327 were injured, according to the Associated Press. Kabul's police chief, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, told reporters at the scene of the blast there were 28 killed, most civilians, TOLO News reported.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack through spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, The Guardian reported.

Mohammad Ismail / Reuters

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said: "The blast was carried out by a suicide bomber in a car and possibly one or two bombers are still resisting. The scene of the attack has been completely cordoned off by Afghan security forces."

Afghan special forces rushed to the scene, and a gunfight in neighborhood ensued, Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid told Al Jazeera. He later told AP the battle had finished, although it remains unclear how many of the suspected militants were killed in the fight.

Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani condemned the "cowardly" attack in the "strongest possible terms," according to the BBC, later releasing a fuller statement. He also tweeted paying tribute to the country's security forces.

"This was one of the most powerful explosions I have ever heard in my life," Obaidullah Tarakhail, a police commander who was present when the attack began told AP. He said he was unable to see and hear 20 minutes after the blast.

Emergency, a non-partisan NGO hospital working in the capital, tweeted that staff had treated at least 22 civilians since the blast. In a statement the Italian NGO added that the security situation in Kabul was steadily worsening, and said it was seeing increasing numbers of civilian women and children injured.

Several government buildings, shops, and nearby apartments were damaged in the huge blast.

Following the attack, the chief executive of Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah, visited the scene of the blast. Earlier, he condemned the attack in a string of tweets.

As the scale of the attack spread through the city, scores of people queued at the doors of many of Kabul's hospitals offering to give blood.

The attack comes at the beginning of the Taliban's spring offensive, Operation Omari, announced last week, and follows a U.N. report released only two days ago that showed there had been 600 civilian casualties in Afghanistan between Jan. 1 and March 31 of this year. In 2015 688 civilians were killed.

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