Barrage of bombings in Afghanistan kill 50 and leave hundreds injured

The Taliban issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack on the base. A suicide bomber targeted members of an irregular anti-Taliban militia, killing 25 people, according to a local police spokesman.

The improvement came amidst vast scale military operations against Taliban agitators over the war-torn country that were dispatched after Afghan National Security Strengths assumed full liability of security from US-drove remote powers in January 2015.

Three separate attacks in Afghanistan on Friday killed more than 50 people, according to a CNN report.

Fifteen more fatalities have been confirmed following a barrage of bombings in Kabul, taking the toll to 51 in the deadliest day for the city in years.

The network is militarily the most capable of the Afghan Taliban factions and operates independently but remains loyal to Mullah Omar.

The attacks underscored the volatile security situation in Afghanistan amid a faltering peace process and the potency of the Taliban insurgency despite being riven by growing internal divisions.

Master Sgt. Peter A. McKenna Jr., 35, of Bristol, Rhode Island, died Friday when his post near the airport in Kabul was attacked, the Department of Defense reported.

“The hope of some people was that the death of Mullah Omar would put the Taliban in disarray and possibly weaken them”, Ruttig said.

The bloodshed began when a truck bomb exploded in a heavily populated district of the capital, killing 15. The blast flattened a city block and left a 30ft crater in the ground.

Scores of women and children were among the victims.

The implications of the Kabul attacks undermine claims by security services and the government that the capital is immune from devastating attacks. The first half of 2015 saw an increase of 78% in suicide and complex attacks, such as the ones that shook Kabul on Friday. His spokesman, Mr. Hashimi, called it a “cowardly terrorist attack against civilians aimed at diverting attention from the tensions brewing between the leadership of the Taliban”.

On Friday evening, two more bombings struck just hours apart. Several U.S. troops were injured.

The radical Islamist insurgents claimed duty for each the police academy assault and the battle on the D.R. special forces base, although not for the truck bomb.

American and Afghan officials on Saturday identified U.S. soldiers as among the casualties.

The battle between the Western-backed authorities and the Taliban has intensified because the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation fight mission ended final yr, however Afghan safety forces and civilians have borne the brunt of the violence.

Mullah Omar had not been seen in public since fleeing over the border into Pakistan after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban.

Residents sit amid debris of their homes after a truck bomb blast in Kabul, Afghanistan. That’s where students had queued to enter the training facility, said an Afghan police official in the police hospital who didn’t want to be named.