{"id":34324,"date":"2017-05-03T10:14:30","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T10:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/blast-hits-nato-convoy-in-central-kabul\/"},"modified":"2017-05-03T10:14:13","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T10:14:13","slug":"blast-hits-nato-convoy-in-central-kabul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/blast-hits-nato-convoy-in-central-kabul\/","title":{"rendered":"Blast hits NATO convoy in central Kabul"},"content":{"rendered":"

{At least eight people killed in attack near US embassy in centre of Afghanistan’s capital, officials say.}<\/p>\n

Kabul, Afghanistan – At least eight people were killed in a large explosion in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, officials said, with reports saying the target was a NATO convoy.<\/p>\n

The attacker blew up his explosives-laden vehicle next to the convoy near a National Defence Security (NDS) checkpoint on Shash Darak road in the central Macroyan area early on Wednesday, military officials said.<\/p>\n

At least eight Afghan civilians were killed and 23 others wounded, including three US service members, officials said.<\/p>\n

“The injured were transferred to two hospitals in the area; the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital and the Emergency Hospital,” Wahid Majrouh, a health ministry spokesman, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

“Some of the wounded are in a critical condition,” Majrouh added.<\/p>\n

“There are dead bodies lying on the road here, several are believed to be from the NDS,” Abdul Haq, a witness, told Al Jazeera. <\/p>\n

“Police are clearing the area and the city is high alert,” he added.<\/p>\n

The blast occurred in an area not far from the US embassy and a compound used by the NATO-led Resolute Support mission.<\/p>\n

{{‘Spring offensive’}}<\/p>\n

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack as of yet .<\/p>\n

The blast came several days after the Taliban announced their so-called “spring offensive”, in which they vowed to target foreign troops.<\/p>\n

Kabul last month endorsed US general John Nicholson’s call for thousands of additional coalition troops in Afghanistan to fend off the group during the spring offensive.<\/p>\n

Extra troops were needed to end the stalemate in the war, Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, told the US Congress.<\/p>\n

Separately, the Pentagon this year said it would deploy some 300 US Marines this spring to Helmand province alone.<\/p>\n

The Marines will assist a NATO-led mission to train Afghan forces, in the latest sign that foreign forces are increasingly being drawn back into the worsening conflict.<\/p>\n

A recent UN report showed that Kabul province had the highest number of civilian casualties in the first quarter of the year due to attacks in the capital. <\/p>\n

The body had called on all groups to “take every measure possible to prevent unnecessary and unacceptable harm to Afghan civilians”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/figure>\n

Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{At least eight people killed in attack near US embassy in centre of Afghanistan’s capital, officials say.} Kabul, Afghanistan – At least eight people were killed in a large explosion in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, officials said, with reports saying the target was a NATO convoy. The attacker blew up his explosives-laden vehicle next to the […]<\/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":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34324","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=34324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34324"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34324"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}