University students, doctors among casualties as car bomb targets Afghan city

At least 21 people were killed and nearly 100 wounded when a car bomb exploded in an Afghan city south of the capital that President Ashraf Ghani blamed on the Taliban, AFP reported.

The blast occurred in a residential area of Pul-e-Alam, capital of Logar province, as people were breaking their Ramadan fast, and came on the eve of the formal start of the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

According to AFP, Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said that the blast left 21 people dead and 91 others wounded, updating an earlier toll.

Ghani chief of Logar’s provincial council, Hasibullah Stanikzai, said the car bomb targeted a guesthouse in the city where dozens of people were living —including university students.

Arian said the blast caused widespread damage in the area, including to a hospital and residential houses, AFP reported.

“The roofs of houses have collapsed and people are trapped under the debris,” he said, adding the toll might change.

Arian said the casualties include university students who were in the guesthouse to take exams, and doctors and patients from the hospital that was damaged by the blast.

Officials said those wounded were brought to Kabul for treatment.

Samat Gul, head of Logar health department, said the wounded had to be taken to Kabul since the blast damaged the main city hospital and its ambulances and also left some doctors wounded.

He said Kabul had dispatched ambulances so that the wounded could be taken to the capital.

Ghani blamed the Taliban for the attack.

“The Taliban have once again shown that they are not only unwilling to resolve the current crisis peacefully and fundamentally, but are complicating the situation and wasting the opportunity for peace,” the Afghan president said in a statement.

The Taliban did not make any immediate comment.