Kabul attack: Taliban kill 95 with ambulance bomb in Afghan capital

A suicide bombing has killed at least 95 people and injured 158 others in the centre of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, officials say.

Attackers drove an ambulance laden with explosives past a police checkpoint in a secure zone, home to government offices and foreign embassies.

The target is believed to have been an interior ministry building, but many people were hit while walking by.

The Taliban have said they carried out the attack, the deadliest for months.

A week ago, Taliban militants killed 22 people in a luxury Kabul hotel.

Witnesses say the area - also home to offices of the European Union, a hospital and a shopping zone known as Chicken Street - was crowded with people when the bomb exploded on Saturday at about 12:15 local time (08:45 GMT).

Plumes of smoke were seen from around the city.

MP Mirwais Yasini told the BBC the area looked like a butchers afterwards.

He was having lunch at his family home, just metres away, when the blast went off. "First of all we thought it was inside our house," he said. Then he went outside and saw scattered bodies. "It is very, very inhumane."

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Another witness, a software engineer who wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC he was about a 1km away when he heard the noise.

"I saw a huge flame," he said. "The smoke was pungent. It entered my eyes and I was not able to see for some time."

He said when he moved closer he saw the dead bodies, and it looked like a "brutal graveyard". "It was a terrible moment. [The area] is completely destroyed."