Kabul, July 22 (TNS): A suicide bomb blast has rocked Kabul airport shortly after Afghan Vice-President Abdul Rashid Dostum returned from self-imposed exile.<\/p>\n
The interior ministry said 11 people were killed in a square that Gen Dostum had just passed through. He was unhurt.<\/p>\n
The ethnic Uzbek and former warlord was cheered by supporters on arrival.<\/p>\n
He left for Turkey more than a year ago, accused of ordering his men to kidnap and rape a political rival, accusations he denies.<\/p>\n
Hashmat Estankzai, of Kabul police, told the media a suicide attacker on foot had set off his explosives outside the gate of the airport.<\/p>\n
He said at least 14 people were also injured in the blast.<\/p>\n
Some reports said Gen Dostum’s convoy was departing as the blast was heard. He was in an armoured vehicle.<\/p>\n
Television footage showed Gen Dostum greeting supporters at his office not long after the explosion.<\/p>\n
Gen Dostum’s reappearance was preceded by unrest in his powerbase in northern Afghanistan, as supporters demanded his return and the release of a militia leader.<\/p>\n
Analysts believe President Ashraf Ghani sanctioned the return of Gen Dostum to try to shore up support ahead of the presidential election next year.<\/p>\n
Gen Dostum helped the US oust the Taleban in 2001 but has been blamed for some of the worst atrocities in the country’s long-running civil war.<\/p>\n
He joined its national unity government in 2014.<\/p>\n
Ahmad Eshchi, a former ally, said he had suffered days of severe beatings and sexual abuse at Gen Dostum’s command.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kabul, July 22 (TNS): A suicide bomb blast has rocked Kabul airport shortly after Afghan Vice-President Abdul Rashid Dostum returned from self-imposed exile. The interior ministry said 11 people were killed in a square that Gen Dostum had just passed through. He was unhurt. The ethnic Uzbek and former warlord was cheered by supporters on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72968,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72966\/revisions\/72968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}