UPDATE 3-Blast kills seven at Chinese-run restaurant in Afghan capital

An explosion tore through a Chinese-run restaurant ‌in a hotel in a heavily guarded part of Afghanistan's capital on Monday, killing a Chinese national and six Afghans ⁠and injuring several others including a child, officials said.

An explosion tore through a Chinese-run restaurant ‌in a hotel in a heavily guarded part of Afghanistan's capital on Monday, killing a Chinese national and six Afghans ⁠and injuring several others including a child, officials said. The restaurant was in the commercial Shahr-e-Naw neighbourhood of Kabul that includes office buildings, shopping complexes and embassies, police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said. The ​district is considered one of the safest in the city.

The Chinese noodle ‍restaurant was jointly run by a Chinese Muslim, Abdul Majid, his wife, and an Afghan partner, Abdul Jabbar Mahmood, and served the Chinese Muslim community, Zadran said. One Chinese national, identified as Ayub, and six Afghans ⁠were ‌killed in the ⁠blast, which occurred near the kitchen, while several others were injured, Zadran added.

Videos shared on social media ‍showed debris scattered on the street outside and smoke spewing from a large hole torn ​into the front of the restaurant building. "So far, we have received 20 people at ⁠our hospital," Dejan Panic, humanitarian group EMERGENCY's Country Director in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

"Among the wounded are ⁠four women and a child ... Unfortunately, seven people were already dead on arrival." There was no immediate word on the cause of the explosion. Authorities said they were ⁠investigating.

The Taliban took control of war-torn Afghanistan in 2021 and said it would restore ⁠security, but bomb ‌attacks have continued, many of them claimed by the local arm of the militant Islamic State group.

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