KABUL (PAN): Fourteen people including six Italian soldiers were killed and 59 others including foreigners wounded in a powerful car suicide bombing in capital Kabul on Thursday, according to Afghan public health ministry and Italian defence minister.
The blast took place on the road leading to the Kabul International Airport near Bibi Mehro Higher Secondary School.
In a brief address to the Italian parliament, Ignazio La Russa said an explosive-filled car rammed into two vehicles carrying Italian soldiers Thursday, killing six soldiers and wounding four others.
He said the lives of the four injured did not appear to be in immediate danger.
Public Health Ministry official Syed Kabir Ameeri told Pajhwok Afghan News six dead bodies and 47 injured people were brought to the 400-bed hospital. A dead and six wounded persons were rushed to Wazir Akbar Khan hospital while two dead bodies and as many wounded were taken to the emergency hospital.
Seventeen injured people were discharged after first medical aid from the 400-bed hospital where one injured was in a critical condition. To a question, he said all those brought to the hospitals were local civilians.
However, crime branch police chief for Kabul zone, Brig Gen Syed Abdul Ghaffar Syedzada said the blast killed two people and wounded 32 others.
Seven vehicles, two of them of foreigners, were also destroyed in the blast, he added.
Earlier, witnesses said they seen two bodies of foreign soldiers covered with a green sheet.
Security officials in the area are also tight-lipped about the nature of the explosion and the casualty toll.
The blast, the latest in the escalating violence in the country, took place days before the Eid festival. Afghans are going to celebrate Eid in the coming three days and the shopping in all Kabul markets is touching the peak.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the blast. Zabihullah Mujahid said the blast killed 10 foreign soldiers and destroyed their four vehicles.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the blast, saying the enemies of Afghans will never succeed in their designs.
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