Toll from blast in Afghan capital up to at least 40 dead, 140 wounded: official

KABUL (Reuters) - A bomb hidden in an ambulance killed at least 40 people and wounded about 140 in Afghanistan on Saturday when it blew up in an area of the capital near foreign embassies and government buildings.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, a week after it claimed an attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul in which more than 20 people were killed.

“It is a massacre,” said Dejan Panic, coordinator in Afghanistan for the Italian aid group Emergency, which runs a nearby trauma hospital. In a message on Twitter, the group said more than 50 wounded had been brought in to that hospital alone.

Health ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh said at least 40 people were killed and 140 wounded in the blast, which tore through a crowded street in a busy part of the city at lunchtime. - Read More

Toll from blast in Afghan capital up to at least 40 dead, 140 wounded: official