Afghan suicide bombing death toll rises to 90

The death toll in suicide bombing in a crowded market in Afghanistan rose to 90 as one more critically injured person died in a Kabul hospital on Wednesday. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives near a busy market in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, instantly killing 89 people, including women and children. It was the deadliest insurgent attack on civilians since the 2001 US-led invasion. The blast destroyed numerous mud-brick shops, flipped cars over and stripped trees of their branches, brutally underscoring the country’s instability as US troops prepare to leave by the end of the year and politicians in Kabul struggle for power after a disputed presidential runoff. Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the Defense Ministry spokesman, said the bomber detonated his explosives as he drove by the crowded market in a remote town in Urgun district, in the Paktia province bordering Pakistan. Azimi gave the death toll and said more than 60 other people were wounded. Nearby hospitals were overwhelmed, and dozens of victims were transported over dangerous roads to the capital, Kabul. Ahmad Shah, a gas station employee who rushed to the site to help, said he loaded dozens of people who were injured or killed into vehicles. ‘I saw the smoke, and the town was burning. There were dead bodies everywhere,’ he said outside a hospital in Kabul, according to a news agency.