Afghanistan Times
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AT-KABUL: A powerful Taliban truck bomb targeted the German consulate in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province late on Thursday night, killing at least five people and wounding more than 120, official sources told Afghanistan Times.
The attack which the Taliban called it a “revenge” for US air strikes in the volatile province of Kunduz earlier this month that left up to 32 civilians dead, has killed 5 civilians and injured more than 120 people, Munir Farhad, Balkh Governor spokesman told Afghanistan Times.
The huge explosion, followed by sporadic gunfire, reverberated across the usually tranquil city, has partly damaged buildings up to 5km around the consulate.
“The suicide attacker smashed his explosives-laden truck into the wall of the German consulate” Farhad said. Then an unknown number of attackers also tried to force their way into the consulate building he said out of whom one was captured alive by security forces and he had no details on other attackers.
The German foreign ministry said the attack had ended and that all German staff from the consulate were unharmed.
Doctor Noor Mohammad Fayez, head of the public hospital said nearly all of the injured persons were civilians, mostly women and children.
Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid said the “martyrdom attack on the German consulate that started with a truck bomb” was followed by “several martyrdom seeking Mujahidins” who entered to the building to target the people who survived the truck bombing in which he said “tens of invaders” were killed and injured. Taliban as a routine exaggerate in their battlefield claims.
US forces conceded last week that its air strikes “very likely” resulted in civilian casualties in Kunduz, pledging a full investigation into the incident.
The strikes killed at least 32 civilians, after a Taliban assault left two American soldiers and three Afghan Special Forces soldiers dead near Kunduz city.
The strikes triggered impassioned protests in Kunduz city, with the victims’ relatives parading mutilated bodies of dead children piled into open trucks through the streets. “With additional information from AFP”
