Skyler Cuenco

Kabul mourns 100 dead after ambulance

bomb
More than 100 people are now believed to have been killed in a suicide bombing
on Saturday in Kabul.

Attackers drove an ambulance past a police checkpoint to get to a crowded street in a

district full of government buildings and embassies.

Afghanistan's government has declared a day of mourning for Sunday, as funerals take
place and relatives search hospitals for survivors.

The Taliban - a hardline Islamist group - said it was behind the attack.

It was the deadliest attack in Afghanistan for months and took place a week after an
attack on a Kabul hotel in which 22 people were killed.
Witnesses say the area - also home to offices of the European Union, a hospital and a
shopping zone known as Chicken Street - was crowded with people when the bomb
exploded on Saturday at about 12:15 local time (08:45 GMT).

Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, said the attacker got
through a security checkpoint after telling police he was taking a patient to nearby
Jamhuriat hospital.

He detonated the bomb at a second checkpoint, said Mr Rahimi.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the use of an ambulance was
"harrowing". A Taliban spokesman later linked the attack to US efforts to assist Afghan
forces with troops and airstrikes.

In a statement, Zabihullah Mujahid said: "If you go ahead with a policy of aggression
and speak from the barrel of a gun, don't expect Afghans to grow flowers in response."

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42850624