7 August 2019 Kabul Bombing

On the morning of 7 August 2019, a suicide car bomb detonated at a security checkpoint outside the District 6 police headquarters in Golaee Dawa Khana, a predominantly Shi'ite neighbourhood in western Kabul, Afghanistan. The explosion occurred around 9:00 am Afghanistan Time when a vehicle approached the gates of the police headquarters and was stopped at the checkpoint. The blast produced thick smoke and a large crater, destroying the police station, a nearby military training school that also served as a recruitment center for security forces, and windows within a roughly mile-wide radius.

At least 14 people were killed, including four police officers, and 145 were wounded. Most of the casualties were civilians, with 92 of the wounded identified as civilians and the majority of the wounded being women and children. Of the attackers, two were killed in the incident and one was arrested.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that one of its suicide bombers had targeted "a recruitment centre." The Taliban also asserted that a larger truck bomb had been used, though the vehicle has been identified elsewhere as a car bomb.

The attack took place against the backdrop of ongoing negotiations between the Taliban and the United States aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan, with a proposed framework discussed in July and August 2019 involving the withdrawal of US troops before the 2020 US presidential election. Despite these negotiations, the Taliban had continued to target civilians ahead of the 2019 Afghan presidential election throughout the first half of 2019, and had publicly threatened to disrupt the election, scheduled for later that year, calling it "worthless."

This was not the first attack on a police facility that year. In April 2019, a Taliban attack in western Afghanistan killed 30 soldiers and police officers, and on 27 July 2019 a suicide bombing near a police headquarters in Ghazni Province killed three police officers and wounded 12. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported that July 2019 was the deadliest month in the country since May 2017 due to a rise in civilian casualties. The 7 August attack occurred just days before the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha.