KABUL, Nov 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Fifteen civilians, including eight
children, were killed Wednesday when their vehicle hit a land mine in Kunduz
province in northern Afghanistan, a government official said.
“At around 5:00 pm this evening a mine planted by the Taliban terrorists
hit a civilian car… killing 15 civilians and wounding two more,” said
Nasrat Rahimi, an interior ministry spokesman.
Six women and a man were also among those killed in the blast in Kunduz,
on the country’s northern border with Tajikistan, Rahimi said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast. It was also unclear if
it was a targeted attack.
However there are regular clashes in the region between the Taliban
insurgents and US-backed Afghan forces.
Insurgents attacked the provincial capital, also called Kunduz, in early
September, but failed to capture it. The Taliban briefly seized the city in
2015.
The blast comes during what has been a period of relative and uneasy calm,
where the rate of large-scale attacks has dropped in recent weeks.
The comparative lull followed a blood-stained presidential campaign season
that ended with a general election on September 28.
– No vote results yet –
But Wednesday’s blast comes less than a week after a foreign national was
killed and at least five other people wounded in a grenade attack on a United
Nations vehicle in Kabul on November 24.
The attack happened on a road frequently used by UN traffic shuttling
workers between central Kabul and a large UN compound on the outskirts of the
capital.
The UN said two other staff members — one Afghan and one international —
were wounded.
Aid agencies and non-governmental groups are sometimes targeted in
Afghanistan’s war.
In 2011, seven foreign UN workers — including four Nepalis, a Swede, a
Norwegian and a Romanian — were killed in an attack on a UN compound in the
northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Afghans are still waiting for the results of that September 28
presidential election, with a recount bogged down by technical difficulties
and bickering between the incumbent, President Ashraf Ghani, and his chief
rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
Afghans are also waiting to see what might happen in negotiations between
Washington and the Taliban.
US President Donald Trump in September ended those yearlong talks as
Taliban violence continued, but on November 22 he suggested to US broadcaster
Fox News that negotiations could be getting underway again.