Four Afghan civilians were killed and 24 more wounded in a suicide bombing Tuesday afternoon outside Afghanistan’s Justice Ministry, an Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman said.
An explosives-laden vehicle was detonated in the Justice Ministry’s parking lot around 4 p.m. (7:30 a.m. ET) Tuesday, according to the government spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. A spokesman for the militant group, Zabiullah Mujahid, said it killed and wounded high- and low-ranking Justice Ministry officials.
The Taliban’s involvement is hardly a surprise. A U.S.-led military offensive ousted the group from power in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks. But since then, the Taliban have carried out similar violence almost continuously, including two recent attacks on the Afghan attorney general’s office.
On Sunday, Mujahid said his group was behind a suicide car bombing near Hamid Karzai International Airport that killed four people, one of them a British citizen.
According to Kabul police spokesman Ebadullah Karimi, the bomber in that attack targeted a European Union vehicle. At least 18 people were wounded, including three other EU Police Mission members who were in the targeted vehicle.
And last week, the Taliban claimed responsibility for an armed assault on Kabul’s Park Palace Guest House hotel that killed 14 people, including an American.
But the Taliban aren’t the only violent threat facing Afghan authorities, civilians and their allies.
The ISIS terrorist group said it carried out a suicide bombing — this one involving a rider on a motorbike — last month in front of a bank in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. That attack killed at least 33 people and injured more than 100 others, public health spokesman Najibullah Kamawal said.
