By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan (AA): A massive suicide car bombing on Sunday killed at least 12 people and injured 180 others in Afghanistan’s restive central Ghazni province, officials and the local media confirmed.

Amid Afghan peace talks in Qatar, the Taliban took responsibility for the deadly assault. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said on social media that a compound of the Afghan secret service, NDS, was the target for this Sunday morning assault in the provincial capital, which briefly fell to the rebels last year.

Confirming the death toll, Baz Mohammad, head of the public hospital in Ghazni, told Anadolu Agency that civilian and security forces are among the victims.

Eight members of the security forces and six civilians were killed, injuring 180, many of them students attending a nearby school.

Last evening, the Taliban and the U.S. expressed optimism for peace in ongoing talks in the Qatari capital Doha.

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said in a series of tweets on Saturday that the last six days of talks with the leadership of the Afghan insurgents were “most productive session to date.”

Talks between the U.S. and the Taliban are paused for two days as a group of Afghan politicians and civil society activists hold intra-Afghan dialogue at the same venue.

Additional report by The Muslim News

[Photo:  Afghan security officials inspect the scene of a suicide bomb blast in Ghazni, Afghanistan on July 7, 2019.  Photographer: Gul Khan/AA]