and at least eight people have been
killed and dozens wounded by
a powerful car bomb in western
afghanistan
the late night blast targeted a police
station in the city of herat
around 50 people were wounded and homes
and shops were destroyed
the government blamed the taliban but a
spokesman for the group denied
responsibility
the united nations has condemned what it
calls an alarming
increase in attacks targeting civilians
and for more on this let's bring in
journalist ali latifi who is in
kabul ali thanks for joining us what
more can you tell us about what happened
in herat
um sure so the explosion happened late
in the evening last night and it was a
car
packed to the brim with explosives
according to
local residents they said that they were
out until one
two in the morning trying to deal with
the rubble
trying to free people trying to take
people to the hospital
and if you look at the death toll the
vast majority of those eight
people that were killed were civilians
and a great number of the injured
were also civilians so this is another
instance of
how much insecurity in the country
including in a city and a province like
hadout
is affecting civilians i've been to
haiti three times in the last five
months
and every single time people have been
talking about
just how bad security has become not
only in the pro
not only in the province but in the city
people were saying that districts that
used to be safe
only a year or two ago districts very
close to the city of herod
30 40 minutes outside of the main city
are now no go zones for people
so it's really showing just how much
security is affecting the average person
in the country right now
ali very briefly uh peace talks have
been uh going on for a year now between
the government and the taliban any hope
of a breakthrough at all
so they have just decided to re
to move the venue once again from doha
where it's been
since you know the taliban have been
there since 2011 having informal
discussions but
in the last year you know these talks
were supposed to happen
and nothing really happened the two
groups are there the government side is
there the taliban side is there
but other than sort of setting an agenda
they never
did anything they never actually
disputed anything they never resolved
anything
so the idea is after uh the body
administration sent a strongly worded
letter last week
to move the talks to turkey and to try
and rush
everything now and actually make
something happen
including a ceasefire all right ali
latifi thanks so much for joining us
thank you
you