Taliban suicide bombers struck two buses carrying Afghan soldiers in Kabul early yesterday, killing seven people and wounding 21, just a day after the signing of a key US-Afghan security pact.
The long-awaited deal allows US forces to remain in the country past the end of the year, ending the uncertainty over the fate of foreign troops supporting Afghan forces as they take over the fight against the Taliban insurgency.
Yesterday’s attacks involved two suicide bombers targeting buses carrying Afghan troops in the capital.
The first attacker hit a bus transporting Afghan National Army officers in west Kabul, killing seven and wounding 15, said Mohammad Farid Afzali, the city’s criminal investigation police chief.
The second attacker, who was also on foot, blew himself up in front of a bus in northeastern Kabul, wounding at least six army personnel, Afzali said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying the security pact with Washington has only motivated the group and given the Taliban “more morale” to fight the enemy.
“They need to give more sacrifices to make their homeland free,” Mujahid said.
In a separate statement to media, the Taliban denounced the Bilateral Security Agreement as an “American plot” and said that “such fake documents will never hold back the lawful jihad.”
In Kabul, dozens of Afghan security forces sealed off the attack sites littered with broken glass, as military ambulances took the victims to hospital, while worried Afghans passed by on their way to work.
Under the security pact — along with a separate deal signed with NATO — about 10,000 US troops and several thousand more from other NATO countries will stay to train and advise Afghan forces after the international combat mission ends on Dec. 31.
More than a decade after US forces helped topple the Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, Afghanistan is still at war with the Islamic militant group, which regularly carries out attacks that mainly target security forces.
The pact was long in the making. US officials had first warned their Afghan counterparts that if the security accord was not signed by the end of last year, the Pentagon would have to start planning for a full withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
Yet when the year ended, the White House moved back the deadline, saying that then-Afghan president Hamid Karzai needed to sign off within weeks.
Karzai surprised Washington by ultimately saying he would not sign the accord and would instead leave that task for his successor.
However, the results of the race to replace Karzai took months resolve, finally coming to a conclusion on Monday with the swearing in of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai as the nation’s second elected president.
Ghani Ahmadzai signed the security agreement on Tuesday, nearly one year after the White House’s initial deadline.
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