(AhlulBayt News Agency) - The death toll from a powerful Taliban truck bombing at the German consulate in Afghanistan's Mazar-i-Sharif city rose to at least six Friday, with more than 100 others wounded in a major militant assault.
The Taliban said the bombing late Thursday, which tore a massive crater in the road and overturned cars, was a "revenge attack" for US air strikes this month in the volatile province of Kunduz that left 32 civilians dead.
The explosion, followed by sporadic gunfire, reverberated across the usually tranquil northern city, smashing windows of nearby shops and leaving terrified local residents fleeing for cover.
"The suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden car into the wall of the German consulate," local police chief Sayed Kamal Sadat said.
All German staff from the consulate were unharmed, according to the foreign ministry in Berlin.
But seven Afghan civilians were killed, including two motorcyclists who were shot dead by German forces close to the consulate after they refused to heed their warning to stop, said deputy police chief Abdul Razaq Qadri.
A suspect had also been detained near the diplomatic mission on Friday morning, Qadri added.
Local doctor Noor Mohammad Fayez said the city hospitals received six dead bodies, including two killed by bullets.
At least 128 others were wounded, some of them critically and many with shrapnel injuries, he added.
"The consulate building has been heavily damaged," the German foreign ministry said in a statement. "Our sympathies go out to the Afghan injured and their families."
A diplomatic source in Berlin said Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had convened a crisis meeting.
"There was fighting outside and on the grounds of the consulate," a ministry spokesman said. "Afghan security forces and Resolute Support (NATO) forces from Camp Marmal (German base in Mazar-i-Sharif) are on the scene."
Afghan special forces have cordoned off the consulate, previously well-known as Mazar Hotel, as helicopters flew over the site and ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the area after the explosion.
The carnage underscores worsening insecurity in Afghanistan as Taliban insurgents ramp up nationwide attacks despite repeated government attempts to jump-start stalled peace negotiations.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack on the consulate had left "tens of invaders" dead. The insurgents routinely exaggerate battlefield claims.
Posting a Google Earth image of the consulate on Twitter, Mujahid said the assault was in retaliation for American air strikes in Kunduz.
Taliban militants were removed from power following the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, but they have stepped up their activities in recent months, attempting to overrun several provinces.
Afghan forces have been engaged in fierce clashes with the Taliban to contain the ongoing insurgency across various parts of the violence-wracked country.
Meanwhile, there are growing concerns that the Takfiri ISIS terror network, which is mainly active in Iraq and neighboring Syria, is seeking to gain a foothold in Afghanistan’s troubled eastern part.
ISIS has reportedly managed to recruit Taliban defectors in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan. The terrorist group has reportedly recruited some 2,500 Afghan members.
The rising violence in Afghanistan comes despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops in the country.
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