Suicide Bomb Kills 38 in Afghan Capital

Slain Were Mostly Government Employees

Jason Ditz 

Posted onJuly 24, 2017CategoriesNewsTagsAfghanistan

A Taliban suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying a large number of government employees in the Afghan capital city of Kabul, killing at least 38 people and wounding dozens of others. Most of the slain were identified as working for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.

The Taliban took credit for the attack, but claimed they’d targeted people working for the Afghan government’s intelligence agency. The Afghan government denied this, and insisted their intelligence staff don’t travel on the minibuses other employees regularly use.

Today was the one year anniversary of a major suicide bombing against Afghanistan’s Hazara minority, which was carried out by ISIS. There was scheduled to be a demonstration in Kabul related to that incident, but it was cancelled over security concerns.

This fueled speculation that the Taliban might’ve initially planned on hitting that, and after its cancellation decided that bombing a minibus was the next best thing for them. The Shi’ite Hazaras are a popular target for Islamist groups in Afghanistan.

http://news.antiwar.com/2017/07/24/suicide-bomb-kills-38-in-afghan-capital/