News / Afghanistan

Multiple blasts kill about dozen Afghan civilians despite temporary truce

Thursday, 13 May 2021 5:45 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 13 May 2021 5:52 PM ]

Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers stand guard near a damaged petrol station at the site of a bomb attack on a convoy of Afghan security forces, in Kabul on April 21, 2021 (Photo by AFP)

About a dozen civilians have been killed and several others wounded in four separate bombings across various parts of Afghanistan, despite the announcement of a three-day ceasefire for the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

Jamal Naser Barekzai, a spokesman for provincial police, said on Thursday that a roadside bomb struck a car in the Panjwai district of the southern Kandahar province, killing five civilians, including a woman and children.

In another incident, two children were killed and three adults wounded when a roadside bomb exploded beneath a taxi in the Maiwand district of the same troubled province.

Separately, at least two civilians were killed and 10 more wounded after a sticky bomb attached to a car exploded in northern Kunduz province.

Local officials said that at least two civilians were also killed by a roadside bomb in central Ghazni province.

The Taliban militant group recently captured a key district in Afghanistan’s central province of Wardak. The militants seized the Nerkh district, located around 40 km from the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday, pushing government forces out.

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However, a statement released by the Taliban on Monday said the group had instructed its militants “to halt all offensive operations against the enemy countrywide from the first till the third day of Eid.”

The three-day ceasefire announced by the Taliban and heeded by the government comes at a time when violence has sharply escalated across Afghanistan following a missed US troop withdrawal deadline.

The US was supposed to have pulled all its forces out of Afghanistan by May 1 as agreed with the Taliban last year, but Washington pushed back the date to September 11.

The Taliban have issued a warning, pledging to attack US troops if they failed to withdraw as scheduled.

The US says it has officially begun pulling out its troops from Afghanistan in what President Joe Biden has claimed ending “the forever war”, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken says there will still be a US presence in Afghanistan even after the American troop pullout is completed.

US exit from Afghanistan remains shrouded in mystery

The Pentagon says the US troops exit from Afghanistan remains unclear despite its promises to the Taliban.

The US attacked Afghanistan in 2001, claiming that the Taliban were harboring al-Qaeda. The invasion removed a Taliban regime from power, but prompted widespread militancy and insecurity across the Asian country.

The war has taken countless lives, including of Afghan civilians.

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