Explosion hits restaurant in Afghan capital Kabul

“We can confirm a suicide auto bomb attack on Le Jardin”, Kabul Criminal Investigation Department head Fraidoon Obaidi told AFP.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, and said one of their suicide bombers were involved.

“The children were crying”, said one resident, Daoud Bassia.

Despite war season having ended in Afghanistan, the Taliban militant group have intensified their attacks against foreign and governmental locations.

Health ministry officials said ambulances were delayed in reaching the scene because security officials had cordoned off the narrow, unpaved street where the restaurant was located.

A auto bomb ripped through a French restaurant in Kabul on New Year’s Day killing at least two people and injuring 17 others.

A Taliban suicide vehicle bomber hit a French restaurant popular with foreigners in Kabul today. It’s one of the last restaurants in Kabul that foreigners frequent.

The deployment, in addition to a recent arrival of U.S. special forces in the region, comes a year after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces formally ended their combat operations in the country.

The explosion reportedly shattered a number of windows in the neighbourhood.

“My house shook to the foundation and I live three streets away”, journalist Ruchi Kumar told the BBC.

Officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States are due to meet in Islamabad on January 11 to try to revive a peace process that stalled in July when the news came out that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had died two years earlier. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has said the Taliban must reject terrorism to join the talks, while the Taliban has refused to participate until foreign troops leave Afghanistan.