PBS高端访谈:阿富汗喀布尔发生自杀式炸弹袭击

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　　It killed at least 90 people, and wounded 400 more. Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner has our report.

　　A pall³ of black smoke, sirens wailing⁴, chaos⁵ in the streets. A gigantic suicide bomb had detonated in the highly secured heart of the Afghan capital.

　　The tremendous force of the blast gouged⁶ out a 15-foot crater⁷ and blew out windows as far as half-a-mile away.

　　The explosion took place the minute we sat down. After the explosion, we hurried downstairs and saw all the things damaged. Many buildings were badly destroyed.

　　Special correspondent Jennifer Glasse in Kabul, who spoke⁸ to us via Skype, said the bombing came as a jolt⁹.

　　It's been quiet here in the Afghan capital for the last couple of weeks, almost eerily¹⁰ quiet.

　　The weather's been beautiful. People have been going out for picnics.

　　The scale of this attack is really unprecedented¹¹, the worst we believe since 2001, and that is such a terrible, terrible shock to people.

　　The bomb hidden in a septic tank cleaning truck rocked the diplomatic quarter at the height of morning rush hour.

　　Despite its fortified¹² blast wall, Germany's embassy suffered extensive damage.

　　The bomb site was also close to the Afghan presidential palace and defense¹³ ministry¹⁴.

　　The U.S. Embassy is about a mile away, yet 11 American contractors¹⁵ were hurt.

　　Scores of the wounded were rushed to nearby hospitals, where some told of surviving the blast.

　　Everything was destroyed in my location. I don't know what happened.

　　There were lots of workers. A lot of people were martyred. All the people who were on the street were killed.

　　In Nuremberg, German Chancellor¹⁶ Angela Merkel condemned¹⁷ the attack.

　　In moments like these, it is once again clear to us that terrorism knows no boundaries.

　　All of us who believe in the rights, the freedom and the dignity of mankind in Europe, America, in Africa,

　　and of course also in Afghanistan will wage the battle against terrorists and we will win.

　　Today's bombing is just the latest in a string of attacks that have racked the Afghan capital. Security conditions have deteriorated¹⁸ sharply.

　　And hundreds of Afghans have been killed in bombings from both a resurgent Taliban and a growing faction¹⁹ of the Islamic State.

　　Jennifer Glasse says the Afghan security forces' failure to protect them have roiled²⁰ the country's citizens.

　　There's a lot of anger here among the Afghan people. How this large truck got into this part of Kabul, heavily fortified

　　you're not allowed to have big trucks in the center of Kabul during the daytime for security reasons and for traffic reasons.

　　And so there are a lot of questions among the Afghan people how this could have possibly happened.

　　The Taliban denied responsibility for today's blast, and in fact condemned it.

　　We have seen this before, especially in cases where there have been large civilian²¹ causalities and a potential for a public backlash,

　　that the Taliban, sometimes, even when they have carried out the attack, deny that the attack was theirs.

　　Afghan troops have suffered heavy losses over the past year, as the Taliban has made gains across the countryside.

　　Now the Trump²² administration has signaled it plans to take a more aggressive role there.

　　Reports surfaced earlier this month that the president is considering sending 5,000 more U.S. troops to support the 8,000 already on the ground.

　　Again, Jennifer Glasse: The idea is to get more international forces a little closer to the ground level to guide the Afghan security forces in the field, to get them a little bit more coordinated²³,

　　and to make them a little more effective in the fight against the Taliban.

　　They're right now taking punishing casualties, losing 15, sometimes 20 soldiers a day across the country.

　　The U.S. also has stepped up airstrikes and raids against the Islamic State group that's now active in Eastern Afghanistan.

　　Last month, in a highly publicized move, the U.S. dropped its most powerful conventional bomb on ISIS hideout there.

　　For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Margaret Warner. undefined

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