Afghanistan's vice president escapes deadly bombing

Nearly a dozen people have been killed and at least 14 others injured in a bombing carried out at Kabul's airport, where scores had gathered to welcome home Afghanistan's Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, who had been in exile.

Kabul police spokesman, Hashmat Stanekzai, said the bomb attack hit near the airport's main entrance, where supporters were waiting to greet Dostum. He had left the airport in a motorcade only minutes before the explosion, which officials said appeared to have been caused by a bomber.

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman, Najib Danish, said civilians, including a child, and members of security forces were among the casualties.

Dostum’s spokesman, Bashir Ahmad Tayanj, said the vice president, traveling in an armored vehicle, had not been harmed.

Daesh Takfiri terrorist group claimed responsibility for the deadly blast. The Daesh-affiliated Amaq news agency said the bomber detonated his suicide jacket at a gathering to receive the vice president.

Dostum, a former warlord and an ethnic Uzbek veteran of decades of Afghanistan's occasional bloody politics, was mobbed like a celebrity as he left the chartered plane from Turkey, where he had been living since May 2017. His return comes amid ongoing violent protests in several provinces in northern Afghanistan, his traditional power base.

Expectations of the return did little to quell the unrest, with protesters in Faryab province vowing Sunday to continue demonstrating until the strong leader of the Uzbek ethnic minority tells them otherwise.

SS