Army recruits targeted by suicide bomb in eastern Afghanistan

At least 10 people have been killed after a minibus carrying recruits for the Afghan security forces was hit in the eastern city of Jalalabad, government sources said.

The bomb detonated in a rickshaw as the bus passed wounding 27 others, Ataullah Khogyani said. Casualties included recruits and civilians, including a child.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Jalalabad is the scene of frequent attacks by the Taliban and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group.

Rahim Jan, a car washer who was near the scene of the blast, said the huge explosion knocked him to the ground.

“While trying to stand up I saw many dead and wounded people on the street,” he told AFP news agency from a local hospital.

“I am wounded in my hands. My brother is also wounded.”

The news came as a child rights organisation said that every single child born and raised in Afghanistan in the past 18 years has experienced and been affected by war and conflict in their country.

The Save the Children statement was issued on the day marking 18 years since the US-led intervention in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

According to the statement, “an estimated 20 million children wake up every day in fear of gunshots or bombs and being killed or maimed in their streets, schools or homes.”

The statement further added that 12,500 children were either killed or maimed between 2015 and 2018, 3.7 million children – 60 percent of them girls – are out of school, and 3.8 million children need humanitarian assistance.

Months of peace talks between the US and the Taliban, which has waged an armed rebellion since it was toppled from power in 2001, had raised hopes of bringing an end to the conflict but it came to an abrupt halt last month when US President Donald Trump cancelled the talks.