One person was killed and 17 others wounded Sunday in threesuccessive blasts in Kabul, Afghan officials said, capping a murderous week ofmayhem across the city.
Among the wounded was an Afghan journalist who appeared tohave been live-streaming the aftermath of the first explosion when a secondbomb went off.
The events started with the detonation of a sticky bomb — agrowing menace in Kabul, where insurgents and criminals slap magnetic bombs onthe underside of vehicles.
The charge had been placed under a bus carrying officialsheaded to the Kabul Education University, interior ministry spokesman NasratRahimi said.
In the immediate aftermath, two more bombs that had beenplanted by the side of the road went off, he added.
“In total, one Afghan civilian was martyred and 17others, including a local journalist and five Afghan forces, have been slightlywounded,” Rahimi said. Health ministry spokesman Wahidullah Mayarconfirmed the toll.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but both theTaliban and the Islamic State group have carried out recent blasts.
According to a video circulating on social media, thejournalist was hit in the leg by the second bomb.
Last year, nine journalists including AFP Kabul’s chiefphotographer Shah Marai were killed in a secondary explosion after rushing tothe scene of an initial blast. Even though the Taliban and the US are set tobegin a new round of peace talks in Doha this month, violence acrossAfghanistan continues unabated, with civilians often bearing the brunt of thebloodshed.
On Friday, a Taliban car bomber killed at least four Afghancivilians and lightly wounded four US troops in an attack on a US convoy inKabul.
A day earlier, at least six people were killed and 16 morewounded in an IS-claimed suicide blast outside a military academy in thecapital.
And eight Afghan police were killed Saturday and sevenothers wounded in a suicide attack in the eastern Ghazni city, provincialpolice spokesman Ahmad Khan Seera told AFP.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had proposed a nationwideceasefire at the start of Ramadan early last month, but the Taliban rejectedthe offer.
Last year, the Taliban observed a three-day ceasefire overEid and many Afghans — exhausted by decades of war and violence — had pinnedtheir hopes on another truce this year.
Taliban head Haibatullah Akhundzada said Saturday therewould be no “cold water” poured on the insurgents’ military efforts.