A suicide bomber struck near a US military base in the Afghan capital yesterday, wounding three foreign soldiers less than a week before the inauguration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, officials said.
Kabul has been hit by a rising number of suicide bombings claimed by the Taliban, whose insurgency against Western troops and the Afghan government is now at its deadliest since US-led troops overthrew their regime in 2001.
“Three foreign soldiers have been injured. They are possibly American,” Abdul Ghasar Aayedzada, criminal police investigation chief in Kabul, told reporters.
He said the attack occurred around 7.45am when a suicide bomber in a car blew up alongside a coalition forces vehicle heading toward Camp Phoenix on the road between Kabul and Jalalabad.
Three civilians were also wounded, although their injuries were not serious, the police officer said.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could not give any immediate information on possible casualties, but a spokesman confirmed there was a blast near the base.
“There was an explosion. We don’t know what it was, but there was an explosion outside Camp Phoenix,” Sergeant First Class Kevin Bell said.
An investigation was under way, he said.
“It was a suicide attack near Camp Phoenix,” said Zemaray Bashari, spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry. “We have no information on who it was targeted against and no information on casualties.”
Bashari said the area had been cordoned off by police.
Camp Phoenix, on the outskirts of Kabul, is run by US forces, with some NATO member nations maintaining a presence there.
It is also a base for the Afghan army, which is being trained by international forces in the hope it can take over the responsibility for fighting the Taliban insurgency.
The camp occasionally comes under attack, mostly from rocket and mortar fire, though without casualties.
The Web site of Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix says the base trains and mentors the Afghan National Army and police.
It is led primarily by the US Army National Guard. As of September this year there were more than 1,700 national guardsmen there.
Security experts in Kabul have warned that the Taliban could be planning attacks ahead of Karzai’s inauguration, scheduled for Thursday following a controversial August presidential election marred in massive fraud.
More than 100,000 NATO and US-led troops are helping the government battle a Taliban insurgency at its deadliest since US-led troops toppled the Islamist regime eight years ago and Karzai was swept into power.
US President Barack Obama is weighing the possible deployment of tens of thousands more troops while US and other foreign leaders step up pressure against Karzai to act against corruption.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS