Three Afghan security personnel killed in Taliban car bomb
Kabul, Apr 4 (efe-epa).- At least three members of the Afghan security forces were killed and 12 others were wounded Sunday in a Taliban car bomb attack in Kabul province.
The attack, the first of its kind in around five months, occurred around noon local time in Paghman district west of the capital city, when “terrorists” detonated a car laden with explosives “near a convoy of Afghan security forces,” Kabul Police spokesman Firdaws Faramarz told Efe.
“In this bombing, three members of the security forces were martyred and 12 others are wounded,” the spokesman added..
Meanwhile, the Afghan Defense Ministry on Sunday reported that 166 Taliban were killed and 66 others were wounded in operations by Afghan security forces over the past 24 hours in different parts of Afghanistan, corroborating claims made by the insurgents.
This is the first car bombing in Kabul in about five months. There has been a lull in Taliban attacks while peace talks which began last September in Doha are ongoing.
On February 29 last year, the US and the Taliban also signed a historic agreement in Qatar in which they pledged to drastically reduce violence, especially in urban areas, in exchange for a US commitment to withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan within 14 months.
The last car bomb attack in Kabul province occurred on November 13, in which several members of the security forces were killed and wounded.
Sunday’s car bombing was claimed by the Taliban, who also assured that clashes with security forces took place in the same area, leaving “more than 45 enemy dead”.
“This operation was carried out in response to the enemy’s recent barbaric operations in various provinces of the country,” the Taliban claimed in the statement.
The insurgents had already warned on Sunday that they would respond to Afghan security forces if they did not stop the large-scale operations being carried out in the country, particularly in the southern province of Kandahar and the northeastern province of Badakhshan.
