International News

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, (MILLAT+APP/AFP): The death
toll from a Taliban truck bombing at the German consulate in
Mazar-i-Sharif city rose to at least six Friday, with more than
100 others wounded.
The Taliban said the bombing late Thursday, which tore
a massive crater in the road and overturned cars, was a “revenge
attack” for US air strikes this month in the volatile province
of Kunduz that left 32 civilians dead.
The explosion, followed by sporadic gunfire, reverberated
across the usually tranquil northern city, shearing off the
facades of nearby buildings and blowing out windows several
miles away.
“The suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into
the wall of the German consulate,” local police chief Sayed Kamal
Sadat told AFP.
All German staff from the consulate were unharmed, according
to the foreign ministry in Berlin.
The city’s hospitals received six dead bodies, including two
killed by bullets, said local doctor Noor Mohammad Fayez.
At least 128 others were wounded, some of them critically
and many with shrapnel injuries, he added.
Deputy police chief Abdul Razaq Qadri gave a death toll of
seven, including two motorcyclists who were shot dead by German
forces close to the consulate after they refused to heed their
warning to stop. A suspect had also been detained near the
diplomatic mission on Friday morning, Qadri added.
“The consulate building has been heavily damaged,” the
German foreign ministry said in a statement. “Our sympathies
go out to the Afghan injured and their families.”