{"id":30219,"date":"2016-11-11T02:38:05","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T02:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/taliban-attacks-german-consulate-in-afghanistan\/"},"modified":"2016-11-11T02:37:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T02:37:59","slug":"taliban-attacks-german-consulate-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/taliban-attacks-german-consulate-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Taliban attacks German consulate in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

{At least four people killed and 120 wounded as suicide car bomber rams his vehicle into the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif.}<\/p>\n

A suicide car bomber has struck the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing at least four people and wounding 120 others, according to police sources.<\/p>\n

The bombing on Thursday was claimed by the Taliban, which called it a “revenge attack” for a US air strike in the province of Kunduz earlier this month that left up to 32 civilians dead.<\/p>\n

US forces admitted last week that its air strikes “very likely” resulted in civilian killings in Kunduz, pledging a full investigation into the incident.<\/p>\n

According to Mazar-i-Sharif police, “the suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the wall of German consulate in the city”.<\/p>\n

“The blast was too loud and powerful, which shattered windows, and many civilians were wounded inside their homes,” Abdul Raziq Qaderi, head of security for Balkh province where Mazar-i-Sharif is located, said.<\/p>\n

A German military spokesperson told Reuters news agency that shots were also heard outside the consulate and that NATO troops were on the site.<\/p>\n

The number of attackers remains unclear.<\/p>\n

Afghan police said that they found a second attacker hidden or buried under rubble on Friday morning, having spoken of only one attacker during the night.<\/p>\n

A Taliban spokesman told Al Jazeera that several fighters had entered the building and that clashes were ongoing.<\/p>\n

The government source, however, did not confirm if fighting was still ongoing.<\/p>\n

{{German presence}}<\/p>\n

Germany has 938 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, as part of NATO’s Resolute Support mission.<\/p>\n

The Taliban, who seized power and ruled Afghanistan from 1996, were toppled by a US-led invasion after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.<\/p>\n

Almost 15 years later, about 13,000 troops from a US-NATO coalition remain in the country.<\/p>\n

In the past year alone, the Taliban’s armed campaign has killed or wounded about 11,000 civilians, as well as 5,500 government troops and police officers.<\/p>\n

\"Taliban<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{At least four people killed and 120 wounded as suicide car bomber rams his vehicle into the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif.} A suicide car bomber has struck the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing at least four people and wounding 120 others, according to police sources. The bombing on Thursday was claimed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30219"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30219"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}