Women, children among victims in deadly Afghanistan bomb attacks

Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack in Kabul that also wounded 31people at the entrance to Afghanistan's rural rehabilitation and development ministry.

An Afghan policeman keeps watch near the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan June 11, 2018.
Reuters

An Afghan policeman keeps watch near the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan June 11, 2018.

At least 18 people have been killed in two bomb attacks in Afghanistan on Monday.

At least 12 people died when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a government ministry in central Kabul which left 31 others were wounded.

Earlier in the day, a roadside bomb hit a microbus in eastern Gazhni province, killing at least six people, including children. 

A spokesman for the provincial governor blamed the Taliban, which recently declared a temporary ceasefire until the end of the Eid Muslim holiday.  

Daesh claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack, without providing any evidence. 

The attack comes as security has deteriorated in the city during recent months ahead of elections scheduled for October.

"Woman, children and employees of the (rehabilitation) ministry are among the victims," Najib Danish, spokesman for the interior ministry, said.

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Afghan Taliban militants on Saturday announced a surprise three-day ceasefire over the Muslim Eid holiday at the end of this week, their first offer of its kind, days after the government declared an unconditional ceasefire of its own against the Taliban.

It was not clear exactly when the Taliban ceasefire would begin, as Eid starts when the moon is first sighted, but it would be Thursday or Friday. The government ceasefire runs until June 20.

A week ago, a motorcycle suicide bomber killed 14 people near a gathering of Muslim clerics in the Afghan capital after they had issued an edict against suicide bombings, officials said, in the latest in a series of attacks to hit Kabul.

In April, two explosions in Kabul killed at least 26 people, including nine journalists who had arrived to report on an initial blast and were targeted by a suicide bomber.

A week earlier, 60 people were killed and more than 100 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a voter registration centre in the city.

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