Baku-APA.A car bomb exploded near the entrance to Kabul airport on Monday, killing at least five people and ratcheting up regional tensions, days after a series of suicide attacks in the Afghan capital killed dozens of civilians and wounded hundreds more, APA reports quoting Reuters.
The attacks, which follow a change of leadership in the Taliban, have dashed any hopes of an immediate resumption of peace talks with the government and suggest new leader Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour intends to send a message that there will be no letup in the insurgency.
They have also stoked tensions with neighboring Pakistan, the base of many leaders of the hardline Islamist Taliban movement, according to many in Afghanistan.
President Ashraf Ghani, who has made improving relations with Pakistan a priority on the grounds it may push the Taliban into peace talks, said that Islamabad had to act to cut off the bomb-making factories and suicide training camps being run from its side of the border.
"We hoped for peace, but war is declared against us from Pakistani territory; this in fact puts into a display a clear hostility against a neighboring country," he said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide attack in a crowded area outside an airport checkpoint, saying it was targeting "foreign forces".
A security official at the scene said the attack appeared to have been aimed at two armored cars, although it was not clear who was in the vehicles.
Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said five people had died and 16 were wounded. A woman and a child were among the injured, public health ministry spokesman Wahidullah Mayar said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the occupants of the two targeted vehicles were foreigners and had all been killed. He denied that any Afghan civilians died in the attack.
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