A Taliban suicide bomber targeted a NATO convoy in downtown Kabul yesterday, triggering a powerful explosion in a rush-hour attack that comes just days after the resurgent militant group overran a key northern city.
The bombing, which sent a thick plume of smoke rising into the sky and wounded at least three civilians, including a child, came as the Taliban ramp up attacks on government and foreign targets.
Security officials cordoned off the area as ambulances with wailing sirens rushed to the scene, which was littered with the mangled wreckage of vehicles, according to a photojournalist.
Photo: EPA
“The explosion occurred in the Joy Shir area of Kabul city. It was a suicide attack targeting a foreign forces convoy,” Kabul police spokesman Ebadullah Karimi told reporters.
A NATO spokesman in Kabul confirmed that their convoy came under attack, but said the international coalition was still gathering further information.
The Taliban were behind the bombing, the group’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters.
“A convoy of foreign forces came under martyrdom attack by our mujahidin in Joy Shir area of Kabul city. Two of their vehicles were damaged and all aboard the vehicles were killed,” he said.
The Taliban, toppled from power in a 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, are known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
The emboldened insurgents have stepped up attacks around Afghanistan since they launched their annual summer offensive in late April.
The militants late last month overran the strategic northern city of Kunduz, in their most spectacular victory in 14 years.
The capture of the provincial capital for three days marked a stinging blow for Western-trained Afghan forces, which have largely been fighting on their own since the end of NATO’s combat mission in December last year.
The government claims to have wrested back control of the city, but sporadic firefights continue with remnant pockets of insurgents as Afghan soldiers, backed by NATO special forces, conduct clearance operations.
As fighting spreads in neighboring Badakhshan, Takhar and Baghlan provinces, concerns are mounting that the seizure of Kunduz was merely the opening gambit in a new, bolder strategy to tighten the insurgency’s grip across northern Afghanistan.
Most NATO combat troops pulled out of Afghanistan last year, but a small contingent focused on training and counterterrorism operations remains, including about 10,000 US soldiers.
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