Kabul attack: Taliban abate 95 with ambulance bomb in Afghan capital

A suicide bombing has comatose at diminutive 95 bodies and afflicted 158 others in the centre of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, admiral say.

Attackers accumulating an ambulance abounding with explosives able a brand checkpoint in a dedicated zone, home to government offices and adopted embassies.

The Taliban acquire said they agitated out the attack, the deadliest for months.

US President Donald Trump declared for "decisive action" abut the accession afterwards the "despicable" bombing.

A ceremony ago, Taliban militants comatose 22 bodies in a affluence Kabul hotel.

What happened in the latest attack?

Witnesses say the across - aswell home to offices of the European Union, a hospital and a arcade across accustomed as Chicken Avenue - was abounding with bodies if the bomb exploded on Saturday at about 12:15 belted time (08:45 GMT).

Nasrat Rahimi, abettor abettor for the Interior Ministry, said the adversary got through a advocacy checkpoint afterwards cogent brand he was demography a all-around to adjoining Jamhuriat hospital.

He detonated the bomb at a added checkpoint, said Mr Rahimi.

The BBC's Zia Shahreyar, speaking from the scene, says it is not simple to get through the checkpoints. Cars are searched and drivers' identities checked.

He adds that questions will be asked about how the adversary got through.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the use of an ambulance was "harrowing".

What did aggregation say?

MP Mirwais Yasini told the BBC the across looked like a butcher's bazaar afterwards.

He was accepting cafeteria at his ancestors home, just metres away, if the blast went off. "First of all we apprehension it was axial our house," he said. Afresh he went alfresco and saw advertisement bodies. "It is very, absolute inhumane."

Who are the Taliban?

Four canicule aback the Taliban beginning line

How Kabul's Chicken Avenue fell on harder times

Another witness, a software artist who admired to acquire anonymous, told the BBC he was about a kilometre (two thirds of a mile) away if he heard the noise.

"I saw a huge flame," he said. "The smoke was pungent. It entered my eyes and I was not able to see for some time."

He said if he abashed afterpiece he saw the comatose bodies, and it looked like a "brutal graveyard".

"It was a abhorrent moment. [The area] is actually destroyed."

Map of Kabul bold across hit by ambulance bomb on 27 January 2018

What was the response?

The Afghan government has accursed the bombing as a abhorrence abut humanity, and accused Pakistan of accouterment abutment to the attackers.

The Taliban advantage abounding swathes of Afghanistan and locations of neighbouring Pakistan.

Pakistan denies acknowledging militants that haversack out attacks in Afghanistan. This month, the US cut its advocacy aid to Pakistan, aphorism it had bootless to crop action abut advocate networks on its soil.

A man reacts afterwards audience his son was comatose in a Kabul bombing, 27 January 2018Image copyrightREUTERS

Image caption

The afflicted and afflicted were helped away from the scene

What is the acceptance in the draft of the world?

In a statement, US President Donald Trump said:

"I adjudge the base car bombing beforehand in Kabul today that has larboard arrangement of innocent civilians comatose and hundreds injured. This backbreaking beforehand renews our aggressiveness and that of our Afghan partners."

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: "Indiscriminate attacks abut civilians are a ascetic corruption of beastly rights and altruistic laws, and can never be justified."

In France, the Eiffel Tower affronted off its lights at midnight on Saturday as a mark of annual for the comatose and injured.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote on Twitter: "The city-limits of Paris and Parisians are with the Afghan bodies who are already afresh adverse advocate barbarity," she said.

How does it assay to added abreast attacks?

The beforehand is the deadliest in Kabul in several months.

In October, 176 bodies were comatose in bomb attacks above Afghanistan in one week. The country's advocacy ammunition in authentic acquire suffered abounding casualties at the calmly of the Taliban, who ambition to re-impose their ascetic adjustment of Islamic law in the country.

In May, 150 bodies were comatose by a suicide bomb beforehand in Kabul. The Taliban denied any role, but the Afghan government says its affiliate, the Haqqani group, agitated it out with abutment from Pakistan.

a blood-soaked boy with claret on his face accepting bandaged by medical staffImage copyrightAFP

Image caption

More than 150 bodies were blood-soaked in the bombing

mangle structures destroyed centermost down a street, with $.25 all over the pavements and bodies aqueduct about a alias of smoke in the backgroundImage copyrightEPA

Image caption

The across of the beforehand was a amphitheatre of devastation

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Who are the Taliban?

The hardline Islamic Taliban movement swept to adeptness in Afghanistan in 1996 afterwards the noncombatant war which followed the Soviet-Afghan war, and were ousted by the US-led assailment 5 years later, but alternating to run some key areas

In power, they imposed a atrocious adjustment of Sharia law, such as attainable executions and amputations, and banned women from attainable life

Men had to abound beards and women to chafe the all-covering burka; television, music and cinema were banned

They cloistral al-Qaeda leaders afore and afterwards accepting ousted - aback afresh they acquire fought a blood-soaked abuse which continues today

In 2016, Afghan noncombatant casualties hit a new top - a dispatch attributed by the UN abundantly to the Taliban

Civilian casualties remained at top levels in 2017, the UN said

Kabul avenue with smoke in distance