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Add an EventAfghan troops killed in bus bomb
A crime scene investigator works at the site
of the blast in Kabul [Reuters]
At least 31 people have now died after a bomb tore through a bus carrying Afghan soldiers in the country's capital, Kabul.
The explosion on Saturday morning, carried out by a suicide bomber in army uniform, split the bus in two. A police officer at the scene said the bus had been full at the time.
The Taliban said it carried out the attack, and told Al Jazeera it was carried out by a 28-year-old suicide bomber. The health and defence ministries have said that most of the dead were military personnel, going to work at the defence ministry, but several civilians were also killed.
The blast shattered nearby shop windows in the residential suburb.
Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatemi, the public health minister, said: "At this time I can tell you that 31, almost all of them military personnel, have been martyred."
The bus was reportedly packed with army members
The bus was split in two by the blast and witnesses described seeing several dead bodies around the wreckage.
The Taleban claimed the attack, Kabul's second deadliest since 2001.
Responding to the attack, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he wished he could ask insurgent leaders why they were trying to destroy the country.
In June, a police bus was targeted in Kabul, killing 35 officers in the worst attack in the city since the fall of the Taleban.
Windows shattered
Defence ministry spokesman Gen Zahir Azimi told the BBC that a further 21 people were injured in the bus blast.
He said a man dressed in army uniform detonated an explosive device as he climbed on to the bus.
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