KABUL - Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accused Pakistan on Monday of sending ‘messages of war’ and harbouring bombmaking camps, after a wave of devastating blasts in Kabul killed at least 56 people.
A Taliban suicide car bomber killed five people Monday near the entrance of Kabul’s international airport, the latest in a barrage of violence that has convulsed the Afghan capital since Friday.
The Taliban are stepping up their summer offensive amid a bitter leadership dispute following the announcement of the death of long-time supremo Mullah Omar.
Since coming to power last year Ghani has actively courted Pakistan, which has historically backed the Taliban, in what experts call a calculated gambit to pressure the militants to the negotiating table.
But in a volte-face Monday, Ghani slammed Pakistan for failing to rein in the Taliban as peace talks falter and insurgents step up attacks that are a test for beleaguered Afghan security forces.
“The last few days have shown that suicide bomber training camps and bomb-producing factories which are killing our people are as active as before in Pakistan,” Ghani told a news conference.
“We hoped for peace but we are receiving messages of war from Pakistan.”
Ghani’s comments on Monday are his strongest yet against it.
“In my telephone call with (Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday), I told Pakistan to see terrorism in Afghanistan the same way it sees terrorism in Pakistan,” he said.
“I ask the Pakistani government if the mass killings of Shah Shaheed had happened in Islamabad and the perpetrators were in Afghanistan, what would you do?” he said, referring to a Kabul neighbourhood that suffered a fatal truck bombing on Friday.
On Monday, at least five people were killed when a Taliban suicide car bomber struck near the entrance of Kabul’s international airport, the latest in a wave of lethal bombings in the Afghan capital.
“The incident took place when a suicide car bomber struck the front gate of the airport,” said Kabul police spokesman Ebadullah Karimi.
“Five civilians were killed and 16 others wounded including children,” he said, with the interior ministry confirming the toll.
Smoke billowed from the scene of the explosion, which occurred during the busy lunchtime period.
Pieces of charred flesh could be seen littered around the checkpoint, where passengers undergo the first round of body checks before entering the airport.
Ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the site and were seen removing bodies from the area, which was strewn with the twisted and mangled wreckage of burning vehicles.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said two vehicles belonging to foreign coalition forces were the target of the attack, claiming that all people aboard were killed. The Taliban are known to routinely exaggerate the impact of their attacks.
The NATO mission in Afghanistan has not yet commented on the bombing, which the Afghan interior ministry denounced as a “heinous act, against the values of humanity”.
It was the latest in a series of bombings in the city which began on Friday with three blasts - one close to an army complex, one at a police academy and one at a US special forces base - which killed a total of 51 people.
They were the first major attacks since Mullah Akhtar Mansour was named as the new Taliban chief in an acrimonious power transition, after the insurgents confirmed Omar’s death.
Some top leaders of the insurgency, including Omar’s son and brother, have refused to pledge allegiance to Mansour, saying the process to select him was rushed and even biased. Tayeb Agha, the head of the Qatar political office set up in 2013 to ease talks with Kabul, resigned last week in protest at Mansour’s appointment and two more members of the office followed suit.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a Taliban attack on Sunday killed up to 29 people in the northern province of Kunduz, which has become a key battleground in the fight against the militants.
The wave of violence underscores Afghanistan’s volatile security situation amid a foundering peace process.
The first face-to-face talks aimed at ending the 14-year insurgency took place last month between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Murree.
The Taliban distanced themselves from a second round of talks scheduled for the end of July, after the announcement of Omar’s death.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani discussed initiating another round of talks in a telephone call Sunday to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a senior official in Islamabad told AFP without elaborating.
Experts say insurgents are stepping up attacks as Mansour tries to distract attention from the internal rifts.
The uptick in violence highlights growing insecurity in the country as Afghan forces face their first summer fighting season without full NATO support.
A UN report published last week said civilian casualties in Afghanistan hit a record high in the first half of 2015.
The report said 1,592 civilians were killed, a six percent fall from last year, but the number of injured jumped four percent to 3,329.