Afghanistan: Jalalabad suicide bombing kills three

A suicide bomb targeted a minibus of recruits for the Afghan security forces in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Monday, killing at least three people and injuring 27, a local government source said.

The recruits were travelling to Kabul. The bomb detonated in a small motorized vehicle used to haul goods.

Last month, a car bomb attack targeted an intelligence services building in Qalat, leaving at least 10 dead and 85 wounded, the governor of Zabul province had confirmed.

The blast in Zabul was the latest in a string of deadly Taliban bombings across Afghanistan — Taliban suicide bombers had killed 48 people in two separate attacks in Afghanistan two days prior, the deadliest at an election rally by President Ashraf Ghani — as violence intensified after US President Donald Trump abruptly ended talks with the Taliban over an American withdrawal from the country.

The attacks had happened 11 days before Afghanistan’s presidential election — which Taliban commanders have vowed to violently disrupt — and followed the collapsed peace talks.

The bombing was later claimed by a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who said the attack was against the National Directorate of Security and had killed intelligence officers.

Trump’s declaration earlier this month that the talks were “dead” spurred the Taliban to declare last week that the only other option was more fighting, sparking fears of an uptick in attacks ahead of presidential elections at the end of the month.

Earlier, the Taliban killed nearly 50 people and wounded dozens more in two separate attacks — one near a campaign rally for President Ashraf Ghani in the central province of Parwan, and one in Kabul.

The militants have vowed to disrupt the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for September 28, in which President Ashraf Ghani is taking on his own Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, and more than a dozen other candidates.

The winner is hoping for a mandate to negotiate with the Taliban for lasting peace in the country suffering from decades of violence.