{"id":13967,"date":"2018-09-05T19:23:38","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T19:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13967"},"modified":"2018-09-05T19:23:38","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T19:23:38","slug":"afghanistan-deadly-blasts-target-kabul-sports-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13967","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan: Deadly blasts target Kabul sports club"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Twin bombings at a sports club in Kabul on Wednesday killed at least 20 people and wounded 70 others, the latest in a spate of deadly attacks in the Afghan capital.<\/p>\n

No immediate claim of responsibility was made for the blasts in Dasht-e-Barchi, home to many members of the mainly Shia Muslim Hazara ethnic minority that has been targeted in the past by members of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).<\/p>\n

Images taken at the scene showed young men in torn wrestling kit helping the wounded onto vehicles to be taken to hospital.<\/p>\n

The first explosion was triggered by a suicide bomber\u00a0and was followed by a car bomb shortly after, said\u00a0<\/span>interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Afghan President\u00a0<\/span>Ashraf Ghani condemned the bombings.\u00a0<\/span>“<\/span>An attack on civilians and media workers of the country is an attack on freedom of speech and crime against humanity,” he said in a statement.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A reporter and cameraman from Afghanistan’s largest broadcaster, Tolo News, were killed in the second blast and four other local television crew were wounded, according to NAI, a group supporting open media in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai said the second explosion hit as police were helping victims and a number of officers were wounded.<\/p>\n

Al\u00a0Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said the second bomb appeared to target first responders and journalists.<\/p>\n

“It has been a very deadly year here for journalists and for Afghans alike,” Glasse said.<\/p>\n

On April 30, twin explosions in Kabul killed nine media workers and 16 other people.<\/p>\n

‘A lot of dead’<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Social media<\/a> users who purportedly witnessed the attack said the bomber killed the guards at the club before blowing himself up inside.<\/p>\n

He “detonated inside where a large number of athletes had gathered. There are a lot of dead and wounded”, Mohammad Hanif said on Facebook.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s attack underlined the danger in Kabul as elections approach next month, as well as the threat facing the Hazaras – a Persian-speaking minority that has long faced discrimination.<\/p>\n

In mid-August, at least 34 people were killed in a suicide attack in front of an education centre in Dasht-e-Barchi, west of Kabul.<\/p>\n

ISIL<\/a>\u00a0– which has established a brutal reputation and which both the Western-backed government and the Taliban consider an enemy –\u00a0claimed responsibility for that bombing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twin bombings at a sports club in Kabul on Wednesday killed at least 20 people and wounded 70 others, the latest in a spate of deadly attacks in the Afghan capital. No immediate claim of responsibility was made for the blasts in Dasht-e-Barchi, home to many members of the mainly Shia Muslim Hazara ethnic minority…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}