KABUL — A suicide bomber killed eight Afghan air force officers Wednesday after boarding a bus carrying them through central Kabul, in one of the first major attacks in the capital in months.
The morning attack in the Karte-Sakhi neighborhood left a scene of carnage on the street, with limbs and blood lining the road and clinging to tree branches. The Defense Ministry reported that 13 people had been seriously wounded.
Violence in Kabul has been relatively muted in the last few months, especially compared with spring, when a series of attacks before the first round of the presidential elections rattled residents. While the Taliban managed to create an atmosphere of terror in the city before the April vote, bombings and attacks have largely been absent since.
Other parts of Afghanistan, however, have been engulfed in Taliban violence, the vast majority of it directed at the security forces. In one of the worst cases, in the Sangin district of Helmand province, a Taliban offensive has caused heavy casualties, particularly among the police. Although some government officials in Kabul have claimed that the fighting is over, officials in Sangin say the violence has continued and that the Taliban remain a force there.
Heavy violence has been reported in provinces around Kabul as well, including Logar and Kapisa, although tracking these incidents has become increasingly difficult.
The Afghan government offers only limited and sometimes inaccurate information, while the oversight of international coalition forces, who are on the cusp of withdrawing, diminishes by the day.
Security officials say that the insurgents’ focus away from the capital has seemed to be a calculated tactic, both to avoid bad publicity and the heavy concentrations of security forces here. The only other deadly attack in Kabul this summer was an attempt on the life of the presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, which killed several security guards.
If it had succeeded, that attack would have all but derailed the election. As it stands, the political process has broken down anyway, though because of fraud accusations rather than direct violence.
Since the June 14 runoff vote, Abdullah has stuck to his accusations that his opponent, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, had committed massive fraud with the help of the country’s electoral commission and the support of President Hamid Karzai.
Now, in a sign of potential reengagement by Abdullah, officials said Wednesday that the two campaigns had started discussions for the first time since the runoff.
As recently as Monday, Abdullah had vowed not to cooperate with the electoral system at all.