Suicide bomber kills at least 19 at Afghanistan’s top court

KABUL

A suicide bomber attacked Afghanistan’s Supreme Court just as staff were leaving work Feb. 7, killing at least 19 people and injuring 41 in the second attack on government institutions in under a month.

The bomber, who was on foot, detonated the device in the parking lot as employees were boarding a bus to go home, interior ministry spokesman Najibullah Danish told AFP.  

The casualty figures came from health ministry spokesman Waheed Majroh, who said women and children were among the wounded. 

Police blocked off the road around the compound as panicked relatives of court employees began to gather and ambulances and fire trucks arrived.

The compound is sited on the road leading from Kabul international airport to the U.S. embassy.

Last month twin suicide blasts claimed by Taliban insurgents tore through employees exiting a parliament annex in Kabul, killing 30 people and wounding 80.  

The carnage underscores growing insecurity in Afghanistan, where local forces are struggling to combat a resilient Taliban insurgency as well as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants more than two years after NATO’s combat mission ended.

On Feb. 6, the United Nations said civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2016 were the highest recorded by the world body, with nearly 11,500 non-combatants - one third of them children - killed or wounded.

Earlier this month an official US watchdog said the death rate among Afghan troops and police soared last year as the government’s overall control of the country declined significantly.