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Suicide Bomber Attacks Kabul Police Station, Killing 10

The attack was the latest in a series to hit the Afghan capital this year as the Kabul government has pushed to revive a stalled peace process with the Taliban that broke down last year.
Afghan soldiers secure the site of a suicide bomb blast near the Russian embassy in Kabul earlier this month. Photo by Hedayatullah Amid/EPA

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A suicide attack outside a police station in a busy area of western Kabul killed ten people and wounded 20, most of them civilians, Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Ayub Salangi said in a Twitter post on Monday.

The bomber blew himself up after joining a queue of people waiting to enter an office of the civil order police, a police spokesman said.

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The blast was in the Dehmazang area in the west of the city.

"An explosion struck this area, I saw three dead bodies on the ground and a number of other people wounded, then ambulances arrived and took all the victims away from the attack site. That's all I know," said Mohammad Ajmal, who witnessed the blast.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement that said 40 police officers had been killed or wounded. The group often makes exaggerated casualty claims for its attacks.

The city was hit by a series of suicide attacks last month, including one that killed seven journalists from a private television station as the Taliban stepped up their campaign against the Western-backed government.

The attacks coincided with renewed efforts to revive a peace process with the Islamist insurgent movement that stalled last year.

The Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP) was set up as a gendarmerie-style unit to control riots and urban disorder but have also been used in counterinsurgency roles against the Taliban.

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