Taliban attack on Afghanistan police near Kabul kills dozens

Two Taliban suicide bombers have attacked an Afghan police convoy outside the capital of Kabul, killing at least 30 people and wounding 50 others, officials say.

Three buses containing recently graduated police cadets were attacked as they travelled from the neighbouring Wardak province to the Afghan capital, reports The Guardian.

The dead include 30 officers and four civilians, said Musa Rahmati, the Paghman District chief.

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A spokesman for the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack saying that the first bomber attacked one bus and when rescuers began to arrive the second drove the explosives-laden car into their vehicles.

The number of dead could rise considerably – the Taliban are claiming the death toll was over 150.

The latest violence – just a few days ahead of a Nato summit in the Polish capital of Warsaw – underlines the "need for a continued Western engagement in Afghanistan where local security forces are having only limited success in restoring order", says BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

Under the new leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who took over last month after his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was killed in a US drone strike, the Taliban has made clear that it will continue attacks against the Western-backed government in Afghanistan, reports The Independent.

Last week, the top UN official in Afghanistan warned of the danger of a new spiral of violence following recent suicide attacks and a spate of highway kidnappings by the Taliban.

In April, at least 64 people were killed by a Taliban attack on a security services facility in Kabul in the deadliest bombing of its kind in the country since 2011.