Suicide Bomber Kills Dozens at Bank in Jalalabad, Afghanistan

KHALID ALOKOZAY and ROD NORDLAND

April 18, 2015

Dozens Killed in Suicide Bombing at Bank in Eastern Afghanistan

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber attacked a crowd of people waiting to collect their pay at a bank here on Saturday, killing 33 and wounding at least 50 in the bloodiest such attack so far this year, officials said. All of the victims were civilians, according to the police.

The blast was one of three separate explosions heard in quick succession in this eastern city around 8 a.m. Saturday, the police said.

Unusually, the Taliban spokesman for eastern Afghanistan, Zabiullah Mujahid, disavowed the bank attack soon after it happened, denying in three different languages on Twitter that the insurgents had been behind it. “We condemn/deny involvement,” Mr. Mujahid wrote.

In 2011, the Taliban claimed responsibility for an even deadlier attack on the same branch of Kabul Bank in Jalalabad, in which seven suicide attackers killed 38 bank customers, also on a payday. Many Afghans collect their salaries directly from banks as a safeguard against the country’s rampant corruption.