9 dead, 13 injured in attack near Afghan defence ministry

Kabul: A Taliban suicide attack near the defence ministry in Kabul on Saturday killed nine people and wounded 13 others, police said, hours after another deadly blast in Afghanistan's restive east.

"Nine people were killed, 13 were wounded. Most of them were civilians," Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said at the scene of the blast, which detonated as offices closed for the day. The attack was claimed by the Taliban.

Taliban insurgents regularly hit government, military and police targets as part of their campaign to overthrow the Western-backed administration of President Ashraf Ghani.

Earlier on Saturday a suicide bomber on a motorbike struck at a market in Asadabad, the capital of restive Kunar province, killing 13 people and wounding at least 39.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for that attack. The blasts come amid fresh efforts by Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the US to restart talks aimed at ending the Taliban's long and bloody insurgency in Afghanistan.