American Killed in Kabul Attack

A number of other Natoservice members and foreign contracted civilians were wounded in the Friday night attack, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation spokesman Coonel.

Camp Integrity is run by US security contractor Academi, which was known as Blackwater before being sold.

The Wall Street Journal reports three Americans were injured in an explosion that occurred outside the headquarters of the U.S. military’s Special Forces in Kabul at Camp Integrity.

A series of bombs in the Afghan capital Kabul that killed at least 40 people over the weekend are a stern message to the government of President Ashraf Gani.

With at least 35 dead, the attacks made this Friday the deadliest 24 hours in Kabul since December 2011 when a suicide bomber killed more than 50 worshippers outside the Abu Fazl Mosque during the Shia holy day of Ashura.

Officials haven’t identified the U.S. service member killed in the attack.

The initial blast caused by a suicide auto bomb at the gate was followed by other explosions and a firefight that lasted a couple of hours, he said.

Taliban insurgents have spread their war from their traditional southern and eastern heartlands bordering Pakistan to northern Afghanistan this year.

The three deadly bombings which rocked Afghanistan fortified capital Kabul city on Friday and claimed scores of lives, mostly civilians, have been widely condemned at home and overseas.

As they were lined up to re-enter the academy, the attacker detonated an explosives-packed vest, a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The Taliban acknowledged Mullah Omar’s demise final week, after the Afghan authorities stated he had died in a Pakistani hospital two years in the past.

Divisions have broken out within the Taliban high command following last week’s appointment of Mullah Akhtar Mansour as new lead.

This sparked a leadership struggle among senior Taliban figures, raising concerns of a succession crisis that could fracture the group.

The future of the peace talks – postponed indefinitely by Pakistan after the Taliban pulled out of a second round scheduled for Friday – is now in the balance as the Taliban leadership appears to be fracturing amid disagreement over who should inherit Mullah Omar’s mantle. “Actions speak louder than words”.

“This news is aimed at influencing the outcome of talks with the Taliban and reflects infighting within the group”, said C. Uday Bhaskar, director of the Society for Policy Studies in New Delhi.

The United Nations said Wednesday that nearly 5,000 civilians had been injured or killed in the first six months of 2015 as a result of government fighting with the Taliban and Islamic State militants – the most since the world body started recording in 2009.