A series of
blasts in Kabul on Saturday killed at least 12 people at a funeral for one of
the victims of clashes between police and protesters a day before, continuing a
wave of
violence in the capital since this week's mass truck bomb.
Two
witnesses at the scene of the funeral said at least 12 people had been killed.
Tolo News TV and other Afghan media reported a toll as high as 18. A further 18
people were reported to have been wounded.
Government
Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah was at the funeral but was unharmed, a
statement from his office said. Several senior security officials had been
wounded.
There was no
immediate claim of responsibility.
The Taliban,
which has often carried out bomb attacks in the past, issued a swift denial
that it had any role and instead blamed factional rivalries in the government's
own camp, the group's spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
The
explosions occurred at the funeral for Mohammad Salim Izadyar, the son of the
deputy Senate speaker. He died after being seriously injured in clashes during
Friday's protest.
Demonstrators
had been protesting against the government over its security record following
the explosion of a huge truck bomb that killed more than 80 people and wounded
460.
The truck
bomb on Wednesday was one of the deadliest attacks in Kabul since the U.S.-led
campaign that toppled the Taliban in 2001.
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