Loud blast reported in Afghan capital, close to foreign embassies

“We are busy extinguishing the fire at the scene… two Afghans have been killed and 15 others wounded”, he added. Media reports said the 12-year-old boy had been dead on arrival. A Taliban spokesman said the bomber targeted a restaurant belonging to foreigners.

“The blast went off near French restaurant Le Jardin, frequented by foreigners in Qala-e-Fatullah Khan locality”.

The raid on Taverna du Liban saw gunmen mowing down diners and staff, including 13 foreigners enjoying an evening out at a low-key social venue.

Pakistan and Afghanistan established a hotline between their respective military commanders and made first contact on Wednesday, the Pakistani military said.

On Monday, a Taliban suicide attack killed one civilian and injured more than 30, 18 of them children studying at a nearby school. The Ghani government condemned the strike, saying it had “no place in peace negotiations”.

Talking about the Army Chief General Raheel Sharif’s recent visit to Kabul, he said the army chief carried a message to Kabul that the peace process would necessarily be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned.

Officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States are scheduled to meet January 11 in Islamabad to begin discussing solutions to the conflict.

The attacks have coincided with renewed efforts to revive a peace process with the Taliban that broke down in July after news came out that the movement’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had died two years earlier. A local journalist in a tweet said one assailant detonated his explosives inside the vehicle, another fled and one was detained.

The operation to free the prisoners followed months of fighting in which the Taliban has seized several district centres in Helmand, a major centre of opium cultivation and one of its traditional strongholds.