A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a district police headquarters close to Afghanistan’s presidential palace in central Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least seven people and wounding 22, an Afghan security official said.
“The initial reports from Kabul hospitals show seven killed and 22 wounded including women and children,” said Sayed Kabir Amiri, the head of hospitals in the capital.
Mohammad Wali, a police officer, says the Wednesday afternoon bombing was targeting a local police station, adding that the dead and injured were all civilians.
But Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, says it is still unclear if the bomber was in fact targeting the police station. Kabul’s Murad Khani district, where the bombing took place, is full of potential targets including the Finance Ministry, Defence Ministry, the presidential palace and a major religious shrine.
The attacks comes a day after US President Barack Obama said it’s “well worth it” to extend US troop levels for a few more months in Afghanistan.
He had said on Tuesday that “it’s important to remember that the timeline for troop drawdown in Afghanistan remains 2017, that has not changed”.
The United States will maintain its current 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through the end of 2015, the White House said in a statement on Tuesday after President Barack Obama met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
“Based on President Ghani’s request for flexibility in the US drawdown timeline, the US will maintain its current posture of 9,800 troops through the end of 2015,” the White House said.
“The specific trajectory of the 2016 US troop drawdown will be established later in 2015 to enable the US troop consolidation to a Kabul-based embassy presence by the end of 2016,” the statement said.
