Two Indians from Dehradun among 25 dead in Afghanistan strikes

HT, 21 Jun 2016, KABUL/ NEW DELHI : Two Indian nationals were among 25 people killed in a string of bombings across Afghanistan on Monday, days after Washington expanded the US military’s authority to strike the Taliban.

The Taliban and the Islamic State both claimed the first attack, which killed 14 security guards, including the Indians, working for the Canadian embassy in Kabul in a massive blast that left their yellow minibus spattered with blood. 

“We have learnt that 2 Indian nationals, Ganesh Thapa and Govind Singh from Dehradun, died tragically in the blast in Kabul today morning,” external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup tweeted late on Monday night. The Indian government is working with its Afghan counterpart to repatriate their bodies at the earliest, Swarup said without giving other details. Earlier reports had said all the security guards killed by the blast triggered by a suicide bomber were Nepalese nationals. 

Soon after a Taliban spokesman on Twitter claimed the attack, the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan released a competing claim in which it named and pictured the alleged bomber, according to the SITE monitoring group. 

An Afghan intelligence source said officials were investigating the IS claim, which was denied by the Taliban. The Taliban also claimed a second, smaller blast in south Kabul that the interior ministry said killed one person. 

The bombings were followed by an attack on a market in the remote northeastern Badakhshan province that authorities said killed 10 people, with the death toll set to rise. The wave of violence came 10 days after Washington announced an expansion of the US military’s authority to conduct air strikes against the Taliban, a significant boost for Afghan forces who have limited close air-support capacities. 

Police said the attack on the security guards was carried out by a suicide bomber on foot on a key road leading east out of Kabul towards Jalalabad. The interior ministry said in a statement that five Nepali citizens and four Afghans were wounded.