KABUL: A suicide attacker blew himself up outside a wedding hall in Kabul killing at least 18 people, reported TOLO News Thursday, in an apparent attempt to strike a political gathering underway inside.
As a result of the attack, 10 other people were wounded. Eyewitnesses said at least three cars were also destroyed in the incident and surrounding buildings sustained some damage.
The Taliban was quick to deny responsibility for the attack, the latest to hit the war-weary Afghan capital where insurgents have been stepping up assaults in a show of deadly force.
Supporters of Atta Mohammad Noor, the powerful governor of the northern province of Balkh and a vocal critic of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, had been holding an event inside the hall at the time of the blast.
Noor was not at the event, one of his aides told AFP.
The bomber tried to enter the building but was stopped at the security checkpoint where he detonated his device, Kabul police spokesman Abdul Basir Mujahid told AFP.
“A number of our police personnel are among the casualties,” Mujahid added.
Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said seven policemen and two civilians had been killed.
“The bomber detonated himself after he was identified by the police at the entrance gate,” Danish said.
Another nine were wounded including seven police and two civilians, he added.
‘Chaos and panic’
“After lunch, as we were exiting the hall a huge explosion shook the hall, shattering glass and causing chaos and panic,” Harun Mutaref, who was at the gathering, told AFP.
“I saw many bodies including police and civilians lying in blood.”
An AFP photographer said the windows of the wedding hall had been shattered by the force of the blast and a vehicle parked outside was on fire.
Dozens of police and intelligence officers have swarmed the area and blocked access to the public.
Photos posted on Twitter showed multiple bodies of men lying on top of each other in a muddy street and in a drain, and people dragging away the wounded.
Noor, a senior leader of the Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e Islami party, has been an outspoken critic of Ghani and the National Unity Government.
Political infighting has been intensifying ahead of next year’s long-delayed district and parliamentary elections, which would pave the way for the 2019 presidential ballot.
Noor has previously hinted that he may run for the country’s highest office.
On Wednesday Ghani – who is a Pashtun, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan– sacked the Independent Election Commission chief Najibullah Ahmadzai after technical and political bungling, fuelling speculation the vote will not go ahead.
That came after the recent firing of Education Minister Asadullah Hanafi Balkhi, who was considered a close ally of Noor, and one of Ghani´s advisers Ahmadullah Alizai.
Noor has recently called for the return of Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful ethnic Uzbek warlord who fled to Turkey in May after he was accused of raping and torturing a political rival in 2016.
Earlier this year Noor met with Deputy Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq, a senior figure in the mainly Hazara ethnic community, and Dostum in Turkey to form the “Coalition for the Salvation of Afghanistan”.
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