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, uh, last night and it was a car packed to the brim with explosives, According to local residents.

They said that they were out until 12 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 eights of 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 heroin, is affecting civilians.

I've been to hit off 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 problem 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 district very close to the city of heroes 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 peace talks have been 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 return 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 that 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 the Biden 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.