Kabul | At least five people, including four doctors working in a prison where hundreds of Taliban are held, were killed Tuesday in Kabul when a bomb exploded under their car, Afghan police said.
“Five people were killed in the explosion and two injured,” Kabul police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz said. Four of the victims are doctors on their way to Pul-e-Charkhi prison, where they worked.
A passer-by was also killed in the explosion of a “magnetic bomb” fixed under the car of these doctors, in a district in the south of the capital, he specified.
Located on the eastern outskirts of Kabul, Pul-e-Charkhi prison houses hundreds of Taliban fighters and other criminals.
In recent months, the Afghan capital has been plagued by an upsurge in violence despite peace talks between the Taliban and the government underway since September in Doha.
The Islamic State (IS) group has taken responsibility in recent weeks for several bloody attacks in the capital, including those against the university and another educational center, which killed nearly 50 people, as well as a recent series of attacks. ‘equally deadly rocket attacks.
On Sunday, 10 people were killed and around 50 injured in Kabul in a car bomb explosion targeting a deputy, Mohammad Wardak, who was himself injured.
Several provinces are also experiencing an increase in violence, with the Taliban having recently carried out near-daily attacks against government forces, mainly in rural areas.
Targeted killings of journalists, politicians and rights activists have also become more frequent in recent months in Afghanistan.
A third journalist died in two months, Tuesday in Ghazni (east). Rahmatullah Nekzad was killed near his home on his way to the mosque, by men armed with a pistol fitted with a silencer.
The Afghan government accuses the Taliban of being at the origin of these often unclaimed attacks and killings, and thus seeking to influence the negotiations in Doha, which were suspended until January 5.