Roundup: Suicide attack, roadside bombing kill 5, wound 21 in Afghanistan

At least five people including two civilians were killed and 21 others, all civilians, sustained injuries as a suicide car bomb rocked the Afghan capital city Kabul and a roadside bomb struck police van in the eastern Ghazni province on Sunday, officials said.

In the first violent incident but deadly attack which shocked the capital city Kabul, at least three people including the bomber and two civilians had been killed and 18 others sustained injuries, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said.

The attack which happened at 09:06 a.m. local time near the Kabul airport killed two women and injured 18 others including women and children, interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi told local media.

The terrorist riding an explosive-laden car was also killed in his blast, the official added.

Meantime, a police official at the site of the blast on the condition of anonymity said that the attacker detonated his car bomb close to a military convoy belonged to EUPOL (European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan), which is in charge of training Afghan police forces. "One EUPOL personnel aboard the vehicle and two passersby were killed and several others injured as the terrorist blew himself up next to the vehicle of EUPOL in Hawa Shinasi road near the Kabul airport," the official told Xinhua but declined to be identified, saying authorized officials would brief the media after completion of investigation.

Meantime, Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani in a statement released here blamed the enemies of Afghanistan for the deadly offensive and condemned it in its strongest term.

The president in the statement said that conducting coward suicide attacks and killing civilians including women and children demonstrates the enemies' defeat in battle grounds and losing the hope to confront Afghan forces.

Taliban militants fighting the government to regain power has claimed of responsibility for the deadly attack in Kabul, insisting inflicting huge casualties to foreign soldiers, a claim rebuffed by officials and eye witnesses at the site of the blast as baseless.

According to the officials and eye witnesses, all the victims in Kabul were civilians.

Moreover, a roadside bomb organized by Taliban outfit struck a police van in Ghazni city, the capital of the eastern Ghazni province on Sunday, killing two policemen and injuring three passersby civilians, spokesman for provincial government Shafiq Nang told reporters.

Taliban-led militancy and conflicts, according to Afghan observers, would further intensify in the coming months to consolidate their positions before the outset of winter in the mountainous central Asian state. Endi