Hundreds of residents of a Kabul neighborhood where a bombing killed dozens of people staged a raucous protest on Tuesday, demanding that the apparent target of the attack — a compound for foreign workers and international organizations — be shut down.
Smoke was rising from fires set by protesters near the fortified compound, called Green Village, where officials say a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle full of explosives on Monday night. The blast in turn blew up a gasoline station and a fuel tanker, and nearby homes were engulfed. Officials said on Tuesday that at least 30 people had been killed and about 100 injured.
The Green Village compound has drawn suicide bombers to the neighborhood before, and furious residents demanded on Tuesday that the foreigners leave. Gunfire could be heard as the police battled demonstrators. Some protesters tried to throw rocks into the compound, and others attempted to scale its walls, an Afghan journalist at the scene said.
“I can’t hide the fact that people are angry and it will take a little bit of time until they calm down and we take control of the situation,” said Firdous Faramarz, a spokesman for the police in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. It came just after the American envoy to peace talks with the militants announced an agreement “in principle” that would initiate the end of the United States military presence in Afghanistan, starting with the exit of 5,400 American troops within 135 days of signing a formal agreement.
The envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, told an Afghan news channel late Monday that final approval for the deal would come from President Trump.
The attack Monday night, coupled with Taliban assaults on two provincial capitals in northern Afghanistan over the weekend, raised doubts about the prospects for an immediate reduction in violence and ultimately a cease-fire — two goals of the peace process.
As part of the proposed peace deal, the Taliban would agree not to let Afghanistan be used by terrorists to stage international attacks. The signing of an agreement would be followed by negotiations between the Taliban and Afghan leaders on the political future of the country.
At a Kabul hospital on Monday night, residents wounded in the explosion blamed the Afghan government for failing to protect their neighborhood, and they complained that Green Village made it unsafe to live there.
Nasrat Rahimi, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said 400 foreign nationals had been evacuated from Green Village by security forces. But a resident of the compound, reached by text message, refuted that, saying residents had stayed in bunkers all night as police officers battled insurgent attackers until 4 a.m.
Mr. Rahimi said security forces had killed five attackers. He said the insurgents had not tried to enter the Green Village compound, but instead hid in the adjacent neighborhood, apparently hoping that security forces would give up the search.
The Interior Ministry would only confirm that 16 people had been killed in the attack, though officials said the numbers could rise.
In January, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a truck bomb explosion near Green Village that killed five people and wounded more than 100.
On Tuesday, casualties from the neighborhood were again arriving at hospitals, but this time they were people wounded in the clashes between demonstrators and the police. At Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital in Kabul, three injured people arrived in private cars within a minute’s time.
