Afghanistan: Suicide bomber blows himself up, kills 1, injures 13

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The head of Kabul police, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, said one person had been killed and 13 wounded, including three women. He said the aim of the attack in an overwhelmingly civilian area had been to create fear among Afghans.

“Enemies of humanity detonated a suicide car bomb in front of a madrassa where children were learning the Koran and Islamic studies. It shows that they are enemies of mosques, God and the Koran,” he said.

A minibus was also destroyed by the explosion, which shattered the windows of nearby shops and spread debris across the street.

The attack, the latest in a recent series of suicide bombings, came a day after the powerful head of Pakistan’s army, General Raheel Sharif, visited Kabul for talks intended to lay the groundwork for a resumption of peace talks with the Taliban.

The Afghan Taliban’s main spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter that the suicide attack had targeted a convoy of foreign forces and had caused heavy casualties. The Taliban often exaggerates casualty tolls in attacks on Afghan and foreign forces.

A NATO spokesman in Kabul said there was no indication that any member of its mission had been hit.

Taliban insurgents have claimed a number of attacks this month, including an assault on a Spanish embassy guesthouse in the capital that began on Dec. 11 and a suicide bombing near Bagram air base that killed six American troops last week.