A truck bomb has killed at least 15 people and injured about 400 more in central Kabul, near an Afghan army base in the city’s District 8, police sources have told Al Jazeera. The explosion occurred early on Friday morning, rattling nearby homes. “Moments ago there was a car bomb in the Shah Shahid area. Civilian casualties are feared,” Deputy Interior Minister General Mohammad Ayub Salangi wrote on Twitter.
Al Jazeera’s Qais Azimy, reporting from Kabul, said: “The police suspect that the [casualty] numbers will go higher,” he said, adding that sources said that the target of the attack had been an Afghan military base. “A truck bomb detonated close to an army compound,” Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told the Reuters news agency. Officials said 400 people had been wounded in the blast.
Dozens of the wounded were hurt by debris and glass shattering in the heavily populated area. Cars parked on roads in the vicinity of the blast were damaged for at least 100 metres, a witness said. Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said the explosion was heard from miles around the city in the middle of the night.
