Afghanistan | Taliban claims deadly Helmand blast, at least 29 dead

Afghans carry the bodies of men after a suicide car bombing in Helmand province southern of Kabul yesterday

The Taliban claimed responsibility for a powerful suicide car bomb that killed at least 29 people, mostly civilians, yesterday in southern Helmand province.

In an email, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, said the Taliban carried out the attack but he denied that any civilians died, saying only Afghan National Security personnel died as they went to the bank to collect their salaries ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al Fitr.

Most of the casualties in the explosion near the Kabul Bank in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah were civilians, according to Hayatullah Hayat, the provincial governor in Helmand. The bombing also wounded at least 60 people, he said.

Helmand has been at the center of bitter battles between the Taliban and Afghan security forces, aided by NATO troops.

The insurgents, believed to control nearly 80 percent of the province’s countryside, have increasingly been pressing a push onto Lashkar Gah and its environs in efforts to take the city.

In recent weeks, the Taliban have overrun Helmand›s key Sangin district, where both British and U.S. troops had fought for years to keep them at bay.

The attacker struck as scores of people, including many Afghan soldiers and civil servants, were waiting near the Kabul Bank to collect their salaries ahead of the Eid-al-Fitr holiday, which follows the holy month of Ramdan, expected to end later this weekend.

Esmatullah, an Afghan border policeman, who was at the scene of the explosion said the noise from the blast was deafening. He said many are missing in the ensuing chaos as witnesses, survivors and ambulances struggled to ferry first the most seriously wounded to hospital.

“We are taking children to the hospital,” said Esmatullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

Twelve-year-old Hosnia, was crying outside the bank as she searched for her father who had brought her to buy shoes ahead of the Muslim holiday.

“I couldn’t find anyone, my brother and my father,” she said. “My father told me he will take me to buy shoes. We came here and then there was the explosion.”

President Ashraf Ghani called the attack deplorable, and assailed the attackers as “enemies of humanity.” He said the relentless assaults that have been carried out throughout the country are particularly offensive during the holy month of Ramadan, when the faithful seek forgiveness for their wrongdoings.

“These brutal terrorist attacks […] prove that they [insurgents] have no respect for any religion or faith. They are enemies of humanity,” Ghani said in a statement.

Afghan has faced a series of large-scale attacks as the Taliban stepped up their war against the Kabul government after launching this year’s summer offensive. Also, the emerging Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan has tried to increase its footprint in the country with attacks in cities and bigger urban areas.

The worst attack occurred in the Afghan capital of Kabul on May 31, shortly after Ramadan began, when a truck bomb exploded in the heart of the city, killing 150 people. It was the worst attack since the Taliban ouster in 2001.

Pakistan also condemned the suicide bombing, saying that “we firmly stand with our Afghan brothers in this hour of grief and anguish.” AP