Third blast after 24 killed in Kabul carnage

Kabul, Sep 5 (AFP) A third massive explosion shookcentral Kabul tonight, hours after a Taliban double bombingkilled at least 24 people and left 91 others wounded, inanother day of carnage in the Afghan capital. Authorities said they were trying to pin down thelocation of the third blast and there was no immediate claimof responsibility from any militant group. It jolted the capital just hours after high-levelofficials, including an army general, were killed in the twinblasts near the defence ministry, as the Taliban ramp up theirnationwide offensive against the US-backed government. A suicide bomber struck the area just minutes after thefirst explosion, in an assault apparently aimed at inflictingmass casualties as officials left the ministry after work. "The first explosion occurred on a bridge near thedefence ministry. The second struck just as soldiers,policemen and civilians hurried to help the victims," defenceministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish told AFP. Ambulances rushed to the scene, littered with disfiguredbodies and charred debris. But there were so many bodies thatsome had to be taken to hospitals in car boots and the back ofpolice pickup trucks. Firemen, meanwhile, raced to retrieve some bodies throwninto the Kabul River by the intensity of the first blast onthe bridge. Health ministry spokesman Waheed Majroh said the attackleft 24 people dead and 91 others wounded, some of themseriously, adding the casualties could rise still further. The Italian-run Emergency Hospital in Kabul, which wasoverwhelmed with wounded patients, tweeted that four peopledied on arrival. The interior ministry initially said the attack wascarried out by two suicide bombers on foot. But officialslater said the first bomb was detonated remotely while thesecond was triggered by a suicide bomber. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter thatthe defence ministry was the object of the first attack, whilepolice were targeted in the second. President Ashraf Ghani strongly condemned the carnage andoffered condolences to the families of the victims. "The enemies of Afghanistan have lost their ability tofight the security and defence forces of the country," Ghanisaid in a statement. "That is why they are attacking highways, cities,mosques, schools and common people." The attack took place more than a week after 16 peoplewere killed when militants stormed the American University ofAfghanistan in Kabul, in a nearly 10-hour raid that promptedanguished pleas for help from trapped students. Explosions and gunfire rocked the campus in that attack,which came just weeks after two university professors — anAmerican and an Australian — were kidnapped at gunpoint nearthe school. Their whereabouts are still unknown and no group so farhas publicly claimed responsibility for the abductions. The uptick in violence in the capital comes as theTaliban escalate nationwide attacks, underscoring theworsening security situation since NATO forces ended theircombat mission at the end of 2014. (AFP)PMS