Suicide Bomb Hits Central Kabul near US Embassy

Local Editor

An explosion rocked central Kabul during morning rush hour Tuesday and a thick plume of black smoke can be seen rising from the vicinity of the sprawling US embassy in the Afghan capital, reports said.

Warning sirens were sounded at the embassy compound, which was also close to NATO headquarters in Afghanistan.

The blast struck a densely packed residential neighborhood close to the ministry of defense and several military compounds, police told AFP.

Several people had been killed in the explosion, President Ashraf Ghani said.

Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said a suicide attacker had detonated a vehicle.

Dozens are reported injured. Gunfire can still be heard in the area.

Ghani condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms".

However, no group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Afghan Taliban last Tuesday announced the start of their "spring offensive" even as the government in Kabul seeks to bring the insurgents back to the negotiating table to end their drawn-out conflict.

The Taliban warned they would "employ large-scale attacks on enemy positions across the country" during the offensive dubbed Operation Omari in honor of the movement's late founder Mullah Omar, whose death was announced last year.

The annual spring offensive normally marks the start of the "fighting season", though this winter the lull was shorter and they continued to battle government forces albeit with less intensity.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team