Iran Condemns Suicide Attack in Afghanistan’s Zabul

In a Friday statement, Mousavi condemned any operation that would endanger the lives of civilians, especially women and children.
Mousavi expressed the hope that all forces interested in the future of Afghanistan would be able to to overcome the current difficult situation without foreign interference and by adopting peaceful solutions.

At least 39 people were killed and 90 wounded in a suicide attack near a hospital carried out by the Taliban in the southern city of Qalat in Zabul province.

At least 95 others have been wounded in the car bomb explosion that the armed group said targeted a nearby government intelligence department building in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province.

A senior defence ministry official in Kabul said the fighters wanted to target a training base for the country’s powerful security agency the National Directorate of Security (NDS), but parked the explosives-laden vehicle outside a hospital gate nearby.

Residents, many of whom had come to see their sick family members, used shawls and blankets to carry the wounded inside the destroyed hospital building, while authorities scrambled to take the worst of the wounded to hospitals in nearby Kandahar.

The Taliban has warned in recent days that its fighters will intensify their campaign against the Afghan government and foreign forces to dissuade people from voting in the September 28 poll. President Ghani is running for a second five-year term.

After months of peace talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, US President Donald Trump last week abruptly called off the talks with the Taliban following the killing of an American marine in a suicide attack.