At least 21 people, including four journalists, have been killed and dozens wounded after two explosions hit Kabul, according to Afghan health officials.

The blasts went off during rush hour on Monday morning in the Shashdarak area of the Afghan capital.

In the first explosion, a suicide bomber detonated himself close to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the main Afghan intelligence agency, TOLO News quoted an interior ministry spokesman as saying.

A second explosion followed 20 minutes later as emergency medical workers and journalists had arrived at the scene, the report said.

A spokesperson for the Afghan health ministry said the attacks killed at least 21 people and wounded 27 others.

There were fears that the death toll could rise.

Suicide blast hits Kabul voter registration centre

AFP news agency reported that its photojournalist, Shah Marai, was among the fatalities.

TOLO News also reported that two other journalists were wounded in the second blast.

It was still unclear if the second explosion was also caused by a suicide bomber.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

“It’s a very grim morning here,” Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said.

She added that there are many fortified streets near the site of the attack.

“There’s a lot of security in that area – it’s not far from NATO headquarters -and security has been beefed up around the Afghan capita,l but clearly they haven’t been able to stop these kind of attacks”

The explosions on Monday comes just a week after a blast hit a voter registration centre in Kabul, killing at least 63 people and wounding more than a hundred others.

Attacks have multiplied in recent days in advance of the long-delayed parliamentary and district council elections scheduled for October 20 this year.

“The series of attacks here in Kabul have made the Afghan capital most dangerous place in Afghanistan to be.”

[Source: Al Jazeera]