13 dead, 80 injured in Wardak attacks

KABUL (PAN): The death toll from twin suicide attacks near a US-run military base in central Maiwan Wardak province has increased to 13, with 80 others sustaining injuries, officials said on Saturday.

The dead included nine civilians and four police, officials said, adding another 80 people, including 68 civilians, were injured when two suicide attackers, one driving a fuel tanker, detonated their explosives near a US base in the Syedabad district.

One attacker exploded his explosives-laden vest outside the district headquarters at 6am and another blew up his bomb-rigged fuel tanker on a road separating the compound from the US-run Operational Coordination Centre, the governor’s spokesman Sahidullah Shahid told Pajhwok Afghan News.

Seven policemen, three National Directorate of Security (NDS) soldiers were among the injured, he said.

Governor Mohammad Haleem Fidayee, heading a delegation, visited the site and shared his grief with residents.

Buildings housing the district chief, police chief, National Directorate of Security (NDS), a meeting hall, the joint coordination centre, a vocational high school, the education and some houses of government employees, 120 shops, around 50 civilian houses, a hotel and four cars were damaged in the attacks, the governor’s spokesman said.

Twenty-five of the injured were taken to Kabul and the rest rushed to Syedabad, Maidan Shahr and nearby hospitals and ISAF health facilities, he added.

Fidayee strongly condemned the attacks as inhuman and un-Islamic.

The district chief, Dr. Muslim, accused Pakistan) of behind the assaults that also drew condemnation from President Hamid Karzai.

ISAF’s media office in Kabul confirmed the back-to-back suicide attacks, saying none of its member was among the dead.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks, with their spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid saying dozens of Afghan and foreign soldiers were killed and wounded.

Police said it was a very powerful explosion that broke windows all over the area. Most of the injuries were from broken glass from the windows of homes and shops.

Mujahid said the attack was aimed at the American base.

Police said the first bombing was carried out by a militant on foot, followed by a huge blast from a truck bomb that destroyed much of a local bazaar near the military outpost.

They said lots of people were wounded and much of the Sayedabad bazaar destroyed in the blasts.

Health officials said 43 civilians were admitted to local hospitals and 10 others evacuated to Kabul for serious injuries.

myn/ma

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