AFGHANISTAN declared a national day of mourning yesterday after an ambulance packed with explosives blew up in a crowded street in the capital of Kabul, killing 103 people.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which injured 235 people, including 30 police officers, Kabul police chief Basir Mojahid said. It comes a week after militants stormed a Kabul hotel and killed scores in a 12-hour standoff.

Flags were flown at half-staff nationwide after the latest attack. The government set aside today as a public holiday and tomorrow as a day of prayer for the victims, according to presidential spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi.

The blast Saturday occurred after the ambulance passed through a security checkpoint, Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said.

Police identified the attacker at a second checkpoint, Rahimi said, but couldn’t stop him before he detonated the explosives in a central area.

Afghanistan has had a deadly few days, with ISIS attacking an office of the aid group Save the Children in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Wednesday, killing at least four people and injuring dozens.

And last weekend, gunmen attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, killing at least 22 people during a 12-hour standoff with Afghan security forces. Six gunmen were killed. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for that assault.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the United Nations and various countries have strongly condemned Saturday’s terrorist attack.

In a press statement released Saturday, the U.N. Security Council said it condemned the attack “in the strongest terms,” expressing deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the government of Afghanistan.

The Security Council underlined the need to hold the perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice, and urged all states to cooperate actively with the Afghan Government as well as all other relevant authorities in this regard.

U.S. President Donald Trump has also condemned the attack, saying that the United States is committed to a secure Afghanistan that is free from terrorists, said the White House in a statement released Saturday.

In the statement, Trump called on all the countries to take decisive action against the Taliban and the terrorist infrastructure that supports them.

The Eiffel Tower had its lights turned off Saturday night to show solidarity with the victims of the deadly attack, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said.

Pakistan and India have also strongly condemned the deadly car bomb attack.

(SD-Xinhua)