KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — At least 16 people, including security personnel and bystanders, were killed on Tuesday as bomb disposal experts tried and failed to defuse explosives in a parked car in the southern city of Kandahar, Afghan officials said.

Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province, said the car had been parked in an auto repair garage in the center of the city. Four of the 16 people killed were members of the security forces, Ahmadi said, adding that an additional 38 people were wounded.

The Kandahar explosion came a day after the Taliban warned that they were planning attacks on government, police, and intelligence facilities in Kabul, the capital, and asked civilians to stay away from such institutions.

The statement included an unsupported claim that the insurgents had brought about an unprecedented decrease in civilian casualties. United Nations figures on civilian casualties in Afghanistan show a slight decrease in 2017 from the previous year, but the numbers remained at historically high levels, with two-thirds of them caused by the insurgents.

In Kandahar, local authorities said that Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate for Security, had found out about the car bomb in the garage, and that two of its bomb disposal experts were trying to defuse it when it exploded. They were killed along with two police officers guarding the scene, officials said.

NEW YORK TIMES