KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban militants carried out a twin suicide attack Thursday, targeting a convoy of buses carrying Afghan police cadets outside the capital and killing 37 people, mostly policemen, and wounding 40, an Afghan official said.
The attack took place in Paghman district, about 12 miles west of Kabul, said Mousa Rahmati, the district governor of Paghman.
The first suicide attacker struck two buses carrying trainee policemen, and a second attacker targeted those who rushed to the scene to help and also hit a third bus, Rahmati said. He said four civilians were among those killed.
The cadets were returning from a training center in Wardak province and were heading to the capital on leave, Rahmati said.
In a statement released later Thursday, the Interior Ministry said 30 police recruits had been killed and 58 others wounded in the attack. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the different casualty figures.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in an email from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
Mujahid said the attack was the work of two suicide bombers. The first targeted the bus carrying the trainee policemen and their instructors. A second bomber attacked 20 minutes later, when policemen had arrived at the scene to help, according to Mujahid's account.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani described the bombing as an "attack on humanity" in a statement and ordered an Interior Ministry investigation into the attack.
In a statement, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul condemned the attack.
"This cruel and complete disregard for human life during the holy month of Ramadan is abhorrent," it said.
Later Thursday, an attack on a convoy carrying security forces in eastern Ghazni province killed two civilians and wounded four troops, said Jaweed Salangi, spokesman for the provincial governor.
The attack took place in Andar district as the convoy was en route from Paktika province toward Ghazni, Salangi said, adding that the deputy chief of the Paktika intelligence service was among those killed.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Ghazni, though the Taliban are known to be active in the province.
The Taliban lately have stepped up their attacks as part of their summer offensive. The insurgents frequently target convoys of Afghan troops or buses carrying civil servants or those perceived to be working for the Kabul government.
Also Thursday, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif permitted registered Afghan refugees to remain in the country until the end of the year, a foreign ministry spokesman said, as an earlier deadline was set to expire.
Government spokesman Nafees Zakaria said Pakistan hosts about 3 million Afghan refugees, half of whom are unregistered.
Pakistan's government previously had set Thursday as a deadline, after which Afghan refugees would have been deemed to be staying in Pakistan illegally and would be at risk of deportation. The decision to extend the stay of the refugees was announced at the request of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
In a statement released late Wednesday, Sharif directed authorities to immediately engage the U.N. refugee agency and the Afghan government gradually to relocate refugee camps in Pakistan to Afghanistan.
"In order to facilitate relocation and as a gesture of continued goodwill, Pakistan shall commit provision of wheat for the relocated camps in Afghanistan for a period of three years, free of cost," Sharif said in the statement.
Afghanistan welcomed the extension of the deadline, but the refugees and repatriation minister, Sayed Hossain Alemi Balki, said he wanted it extended until December 2017. He also criticized Pakistani police for harassing refugees and said Pakistan should not forcibly repatriate Afghan refugees when the new deadline expires.
Information for this article Munir Ahmed was contributed by The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/01/2016