Taliban Suicide Bombing Kills 14 Nepalese Guards in Kabul
A Taliban suicide bomber killed 14 Nepalese security guards in an attack Monday on their minibus in the Afghan capital, Kabul, the Interior Ministry and an Afghan security official said.
The Nepalese were on their way to the Canadian Embassy where they work as guards, according to another Nepalese guard who was wounded in the attack.
It was the latest attack by the Taliban, who have stepped up assaults, including in the Afghan capital, as part of their summer offensive. The insurgents frequently target government employees and Afghan security forces across the country.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a bomb rigged to a motorbike killed eight Afghan civilians during morning rush hour in a province in the northeast. And later on Monday in Kabul, a second Taliban bombing killed an Afghan civilian and wounded five people, including a provincial council member who was the intended target of that attack, authorities said.
In the bombing that killed the Nepalese guards, the bomber was on foot when he struck the minibus, said Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi, the city’s police chief. He did not identify the foreign security company the guards work for.
An Interior Ministry statement confirmed that all 14 killed were Nepalese citizens, describing the attack as the work of a “terrorist suicide bomber.” It said the explosion also wounded nine people, five Nepalese employees and four Afghan civilians.
