Taliban attacker driving ambulance packed with explosives kills 95 in Kabul

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN)An attacker driving an ambulance packed with explosives detonated them Saturday in the Afghan capital of Kabul, leaving 95 people dead and 158 others injured, Afghan officials said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahid claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes a week after militants stormed a Kabul hotel.

The blast occurred around 12:45 p.m. local time after the vehicle passed through a security checkpoint, Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi told CNN.

Police identified the attacker at a second checkpoint, Rahimi said, but couldn't stop him before he detonated the explosives in a central area near the old Interior Ministry building, a hospital and diplomatic buildings.

An injured man is carried away from the site of a deadly suicide attack Saturday in Kabul.

The injured have been taken to hospitals across the Afghan capital, said spokesman Wahid Majrooh of the Ministry of Public Health, who confirmed the casualties. He said the toll was likely to rise.

The attack, in the heart of what's meant to be the securest part of the city, is likely to fuel doubts over the Afghan authorities' ability to keep people safe.

After Kabul hotel attack, is anywhere in Afghan capital safe?

It comes a week after gunmen attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, killing at least 22 people during a 12-hour standoff with Afghan security forces. Six gunmen were killed. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for that assault.

ISIS militants on Wednesday attacked the offices of British aid agency Save the Children in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, killing at least four people and injuring dozens.

But Saturday's bombing was not just another attack in the Afghan capital, CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh said.

Every time the so-called ring of steel in the city is penetrated, it undermines the government's ability to appear in control of even its most important sanctuaries, he said.

Strategy change for Taliban?

Gunmen in medical garb attack Kabul hospital in 2017

The Taliban's swift claim of responsibility also was in marked contrast to a March attack on a key military hospital in Kabul that killed at least 30 people, many of them doctors and injured soldiers, Paton Walsh said.

The Taliban denied it was behind the hospital attack, suggesting such targets were beyond the pale. ISIS eventually made a reasonably credible claim to that attack.

This time, the Taliban had no such qualms, Paton Walsh said. It's possibly a sign the Taliban doesn't want to lose out to its younger, nastier competitor insurgency in the extremism stakes. A year ago, medical facilities were off-limits; now, an ambulance can be used as a bomb.

'Insane, inhuman, heinous'

Afghanistan's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, described the attack as "insane, inhuman, heinous and a warcrime" via his official Twitter account.

He also called on the international community to "take further action" against "state-sponsored terrorism."

"Our priority and focus right now is to help those in need and provide the best treatment for those wounded," he wrote. "This is the moment when we all need to stand together and punch our enemy hard. This is enough!"

News Courtesy: www.cnn.com