KABUL (AFP) – A suicide bomber killed at least 14 people and wounded 60 at the entrance to Kabul international airport on Sunday, officials said, as scores gathered to welcome home Afghan Vice-President Abdul Rashid Dostum from exile.
Senior government officials, political leaders and supporters were leaving the airport after greeting the powerful ethnic Uzbek leader and former warlord when the explosion happened.
“This is the first time I have seen a suicide attack,” one witness told AFP.
“People were collecting human flesh with their hands,” he said, shaking as he spoke. “What is going on in Afghanistan?”
Dostum, clad in a Western suit and sunglasses and travelling in an armored vehicle, was unharmed, his spokesman Bashir Ahmad Tayanj said.
Kabul Police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said 14 people had been killed and 60 others wounded, adding that nine members of the security forces and traffic police were among the dead.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group claimed responsibility for the attack through its official Amaq news agency late Saturday, according to the SITE intelligence monitoring group.
