HEART: Twin Taliban attacks killed four people and wounded 24 others, including children, in the Afghan city of Herat and at an Italian-led NATO reconstruction team on Monday, officials said.
The blasts came just weeks before the usually peaceful historic city is to become one of the first places in the war-torn country to transition from NATO to Afghan security control nearly 10 years after the 2001 US-led invasion.
Italian press agency Ansa reported that 15 Italians had been injured, quoting parliamentary sources, but the Italian defense ministry could not confirm this when questioned by AFP.
An AFP reporter at the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Herat said there had been a large explosion at the gate and there was a crater at the scene, with fragments of twisted metal from at least one car scattered around.
The reporter added that the attack appeared to be ongoing as he could hear gunfire.
"Four are martyred and 24 are injured," said Ghulam Sayed Rashid, Herat provincial health director.
"Among the wounded we have four children and a woman. The rest are men. There are two among them (the injured) who are in military uniform, they are guards of the PRT. Three of the injured are in critical condition," he added.
Farooq Kohistani, Herat’s criminal investigation chief, had earlier put the death toll at two with 26 wounded.
"There was a suicide attack at the gate of Herat PRT and a second in the city centre," he said. Kohistani did not have details on whether the dead were foreign or Afghan, or what the target of the second blast was.
The attack was claimed by the Taliban. Its spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP: "Our mujahedeen are working on the operation in Herat.
"There have been explosions inside the compound as well as outside the PRT."
Local television pictures showed extensive damage at the scene.
The area around the PRT, which is in a residential part of the city, had been cordoned off and both Afghan and international security forces were in the area, the AFP reporter said.
Herat, close to the Afghan border with Iran, is seen as one of the safest parts of Afghanistan and is among the first wave of seven places due to pass from foreign to Afghan security control from around July.
PRTs are typically joint military and civilian operations that work on trying to help build up Afghan government capacity in a province. There are 28 of them in total working in provinces across Afghanistan.
There are nearly 4,000 Italian troops serving in Afghanistan as part of a 130,000-strong international force fighting a Taliban-led insurgency.
The current conflict in Afghanistan has been running for nearly 10 years.
It started when a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks for harboring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US forces in Pakistan this month.
