Kabul truck bomb kills 80

Bloomberg

A suicide truck bomb in Kabul killed as many as 80 people and wounded 350 on Wednesday morning near a diplomatic enclave in the worst attack on the Afghan capital in 10 months.
The explosion happened near the German embassy about 8:25 a.m. in the Wazir Akbar Khan area, a busy neighbourhood that’s home to the presidential palace and many diplomatic missions, some of which were damaged in
the attack. Women and children were among the dead and wounded, Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said by phone. The Taliban denied involvement and no other group so far has claimed responsibility.
The vehicle was stopped by Afghan forces from entering the secured Green Zone, home to government buildings and embassies, according to a statement from the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission. A Roshan Telecommunications office was also hit by the blast and more than 50 vehicles were destroyed or damaged, Danish said. Windows of nearby buildings and compounds were shattered and police cordoned off the district.
The death toll from the attack, which took place during the first week of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, may increase as many of
the wounded were in a critical condition, said Health Ministry spokesman Ismail Kawasi, who confirmed the casualty numbers. “We want peace but those who kill us in the holy month
of Ramadan don’t,” Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan’s chief executive who shares power with President Ashraf Ghani, said in posts on Twitter. They must “be destroyed and uprooted.”
“Today’s tragedy shows that the conflict in Afghanistan is not winding down but dangerously widening, in a way that should alarm the international community,” Horia Mosadiq, an Afghanistan researcher with Amnesty International, said in a statement. “Afghan civilians continue to pay in a conflict where armed groups deliberately target them and the government fails to protect them.”