Ten Afghan government workers wounded in Kabul minibus bombing

Ten Afghan government workers wounded in Kabul minibus bombing
The Afghan capital saw an attack on a minibus Monday which injured ten ministry employees.
2 min read
27 May, 2019
A police officer stands near the completely destroyed bomb-laden vehicle targeted Monday [Anadolu/Getty]

Ten people were wounded, one seriously, when a sticky bomb attached to a minibus carrying government workers detonated in the capital of Kabul on Monday.

Arab Haidari, from the religious affairs ministry, said all the wounded are ministry employees who were on their way to work when the explosion took place Monday morning.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but both the Taliban and Islamic State group militants regularly stage attacks in Kabul.

Police spokesman Ferdus Faramarz said one of the wounded is in critical condition.

The bombing comes a day after gunmen shot and killed a prominent religious scholar, Mawlavi Shabir Ahmad Kamawi, in Kabul. Last week, a mosque bombing killed another religious scholar and injured dozens during the Friday prayers sermon, also in Kabul.

As the US and the Taliban wrapped up their latest talks in early May, the two sides said they had made progress.

"However, the current pace of talks isn't sufficient when so much conflict rages and innocent people die. We need more and faster progress," said Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy heading the effort to negotiate an end to America's longest war.

Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban's political spokesman in Qatar's capital Doha, also said there had been "some progress" and added that the foes would meet again for another round of discussions.

Shaheen told AFP that peace negotiations were stumbling over the fundamental question of when foreign forces would depart Afghanistan.

Before the US agrees to any withdrawal as part of an eventual deal, it is demanding the Taliban put in place security guarantees and a ceasefire among other commitments.

The Taliban, however, insist they won't do any of these things until the US announces a withdrawal timeline.

At the end of a large May peace summit in Kabul, President Ashraf Ghani offered the Taliban a ceasefire to begin on the first day of Ramadan, but the insurgents refused.

Agencies contributed to this report.

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