4 killed, 17 injured in explosion near Kabul airport

A Taliban suicide vehicle bomber killed five people Monday near the entrance of Kabul s worldwide airport, the latest in a barrage of violence that has convulsed the Afghan capital since Friday.

“Pakistan still remains a venue and ground for gatherings from which mercenaries send us messages of war”, Ghani told a news conference.

Meanwhile, since he took the post of utmost power of the country a year ago, Ghani courted Pakistan, expending substantial domestic political capital in the process, hoping Islamabad would convince the Taliban to come to the peace talk.

President Ashraf Ghani condemned Monday’s attacks, saying the Taliban was still running bomb-making factories and suicide training centres in neighbouring Pakistan, and urging Islamabad to cut them off.

Pakistan has been hosting peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

In a statement, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said two foreign vehicles along with their passengers had been struck in the blast, although those reports could not immediately be confirmed. He had not been seen in public since fleeing over the border into Pakistan after the 2001 US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban. Kabul was already on high alert after a recent string of deadly attacks. The group had announced the death of their founder Mullah Mohammad Omar last month and had appointed Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour as their new leader.

During his visit to Afghanistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif categorically stated that the enemy of Afghanistan was the enemy of Pakistan.

Five people were killed and 16 more wounded after a auto bomb exploded at an entrance to a Kabul airport on Monday.

After revealing Omar’s death, the Taliban immediately cancelled peace talks scheduled for the last weekend in July – underscoring the internal rifts between factions who favor negotiating with the Afghan government and those who want to continue fighting.

In eastern Nangarhar province, a drone strike carried out by Afghan forces killed 15 insurgents and wounded nine others on Saturday, while another strike killed at least 10.