Kabul bombing
At least 95 wounded in Taliban blast in Kabul
The car bomb exploded near the entrance of a police station in western Kabul around 9:00 am (0430 GMT), interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said.
Health ministry spokesperson Wahidullah Mayar tweeted that 53 wounded patients had been taken to hospital, warning that the figures could rise.
Ten policemen and civilians, including women, were injured in the blast.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo strongly condemned the “senseless and barbaric” bombings in Kabul.
Spokesman for the interior ministry Najib Danish said the suicide bomber appeared to have posed as a journalist and blew himself up where reporters and emergency health officials were standing.
President Ghani issued a statement condemning the attack and said it “cannot divert us from our aims or weaken this national democratic process”.
The attack follows several weeks of relative quiet in Kabul and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh said all those killed and wounded in the explosion were civilians with no casualties among the contractors.
At least 95 people were killed and 158 wounded in the blast, which was claimed by the Taliban.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, a week after it claimed an attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul in which more than 20 people were killed.
A plume of grey smoke rose from the blast area in the city centre and buildings hundreds of meters away were shaken by the force of the explosion.
Islamic State, which has claimed a series of attacks in Kabul over the past two years, issued a statement on its Amaq news agency saying it was responsible.
Interior Ministry said at least 40 people had been killed and 30 wounded in the blast, the latest in a series to have hit media organisations in Kabul.
At around 6 am alarms could be heard sounding at the headquarters of the Nato-led military mission, as well as at several foreign embassies in the area.
Fears of another large attack have lingered after a massive truck bomb struck downtown Kabul in May, killing more than 150 people.
The Ministry of Health, which reported the casualty numbers, said the figure was expected to rise.
The attack began on Wednesday evening with a large explosion that officials said was a car bomb.
Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said the incident ended with one attacker killed.
Sources said the death toll could rise as some of the wounded were in a critical condition.