Alwaght- At least 10 Afghan people were killed and dozens more wounded after car bomb rocked a heavily fortified area in downtown Kabul. The blast was claimed by the Taliban group, which has been holding peace talks with the United States in Doha, Qatar.
The blast took place on Thursday in Shash Darak, an Area adjacent to the Green Zone and home to several important complexes including the US Embassy and other diplomatic missions, the Afghan intelligence service.
Farid Ahmad Karimi, general manager at the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital close to the bomb site, told AFP news agency that both civilians and security personnel were among the dead and wounded.
The police sealed off the area after the second major Taliban attack since Monday.
Apparent surveillance footage of the attack, which occurred at about 10:10am (05:40 GMT), showed a grey minivan explode just after it had cut in front of a line of white SUVs waiting to make a right turn right onto a street.
One nearby pedestrian can be seen turning and trying to run away as the minivan crashed through a barrier just before the blast.
A Taliban suicide bombing in eastern Kabul on Monday night - which the armed group said targeted a compound housing aid agencies and international organizations - killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 100, almost all of them residents.
The capital has been gripped by a surge in deadly violence even after the US and the Taliban reached an agreement "in principle" that would see the Pentagon pull thousands of troops from Afghanistan in return for various Taliban security promises.
The US top negotiator for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said this week the two sides had drawn up a draft framework agreement under which US troops would leave five military bases in Afghanistan within 135 days of the signing of the pact.
On Wednesday, the Afghan government expressed doubts about the prospective deal, saying officials need more information about the risks it poses.
There are some 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan, deployed at various bases across the country.
