Six people were killed and more than 30 wounded in a suicide bombing in Kabul yesterday that struck close to the presidential palace in the heart of the Afghan capital, the Interior Ministry said.
The suicide bomber had been travelling in a vehicle packed with explosives and it was not immediately clear what the target of the attack had been.
“It was a suicide attack and I saw someone lose a limb and another person lose a hand,” said Mohammad Tahir, a driver, whose hands were covered in blood as he fled the area.
The blast interrupted a period of relative peace in the city, after a bomb targeted an influential provincial police chief visiting Kabul from Uruzgan province last week.
The capital and strategic provinces across the country are on high alert ahead of the expected start of the yearly Taliban spring offensive.
The militant group ousted by the US-led invasion in 2001 is waging an insurgency against the Afghan government and its foreign backers. It did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack and a spokesman could not be reached by phone.
The attack was swiftly condemned by President Ashraf Ghani, who is currently on his first trip to the United States, in a statement released from his office.
As expected, US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced his decision to agree to an Afghan request to slow the drawdown of troops from Afghanistan.
The US will maintain a force of 9,800 through to the end of 2015, while sticking to a 2017 exit plan.
Almost 3,700 civilians were killed and more than 6,800 were wounded in the conflict last year as fighting intensified and foreign troops withdrew, formally ending their combat role in December last year.
Meanwhile, during a trip in the US, President Ghani, warned US lawmakers of the “terrible threat” the Islamic State poses in central and western Asia, and said the militant group is already sending fighters to his country.
In a speech to a joint meeting of the US Senate and House of Representatives, Ghani said Afghanistan owes a “profound debt” to the 2,315 US troops killed and the more than 20,000 wounded in the war that began after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Ghani, who became President last year, has been feted in Washington during the five-day trip as he seeks to repair ties frayed under his predecessor, Hamid Karzai.
His address came as Congress has been debating defence spending and other areas of the next US budget. Lawmakers also are considering President Barack Obama’s request for authorisation of his military campaign against Islamic State, which has met stiff resistance on Capitol Hill.
“Islamic State is already sending advance guards to southern and western Afghanistan to test for vulnerabilities,” Ghani said.
He said Afghanistan, whose Taliban government sheltered al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, would never again host terrorists. He urged Muslims around the world to speak out against extremism, adding that“silence is not acceptable.”