The Islamic State group on Wednesday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside the ministry of foreign affairs building in Kabul earlier in the day that officials and witnesses said killed at least five people and wounded 40 others.
A member of the militant group slipped by Taliban security barriers “before blowing up his explosive belt in the middle of employees and guards,” the Amaq news agency of the local chapter of the Islamic State said on the Telegram messaging app.
An Agence France-Presse team was conducting an interview inside the ministry of information building next door when the blast took place.
Photo: EPA-EFE
A company driver waiting outside saw a man holding a bag and with a rifle slung over his shoulder walk past before the man blew himself up.
“He passed by my car and after a few seconds there was a loud blast,” Jamshed Karimi said, adding that he saw 20 to 25 casualties. “I saw the man blowing himself up.”
Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said that five civilians were killed and several more were wounded by the blast.
The local Islamic State branch, known as Islamic State-Khorasan, said that the blast killed at least 20 people, “including several ‘diplomatic’ employees.”
Italian non-governmental organization Emergency NGO, which operates a hospital in Kabul, said it received more than 40 wounded people.
“Casualty numbers are continuing to rise,” Emergency NGO said in a statement. “We have also set up beds in the kitchens and canteen.”
Bodies lay strewn on the road in the aftermath outside the high-walled compound of the foreign ministry, marked with the Taliban flag, a video showed.
Some wounded people writhed on the ground, screaming for help, and a handful of onlookers scrambled to offer assistance.
The foreign ministry itself did not appear to be badly damaged. Window panes in the interior ministry were shattered by the explosion.
“There was supposed to be a Chinese delegation at the foreign ministry today, but we don’t know if they were present at the time of the blast,” the Taliban’s deputy minister of information and culture Muhajer Farahi told reporters.
However, Ahmadullah Muttaqi, a senior official at the prime minister’s office, said that no foreigners were at the foreign ministry when the suicide bomber struck.
Tom West, the US special representative on Afghanistan, wrote on Twitter that diplomats “have seen reports of at least 20 dead and many more injured. This violence serves no purpose.”
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