American Soldier Among 10 Killed in Kabul Military Base Attack

A wave of attacks on Afghan army and police bases and American special forces in Kabul has killed at least 50 people and wounded hundreds, during the deadliest day in Kabul for years.

The first attack came in the early hours of Friday morning, when a truck packed with explosives was detonated near an army base in the Shah Shahid area, killing 15 civilians.

Military jets were heard flying over the centre of Kabul shortly after the explosions.

“One Resolute Support service member and two insurgent attackers were killed”, he said in a statement, which gave no further details.

Afghanistan’s security forces stop a vehicle near the site of an attack on a foreign camp integrity, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, August 7, 2015.

The attack on Camp Integrity and two massive bombings in the city earlier on Friday call into question Afghan president Ashraf Ghani’s ability to clamp down on the violent insurgency running through the country despite his administration’s focus on making peace with the Taleban.

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“The death toll from the attack… has risen to 15″, deputy presidential spokesman Sayed Zafar Hashemi told AFP, adding that “240 people have been wounded – including women and children”.

The compound targeted was used by Afghan intelligence officials, said a Western security source who declined to be identified, because the topic is a sensitive one.

Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour, the new Taliban leader, may be trying to prove something to those in the organization who don’t support him.

In it, the man purported to be Mansoor seemed to be carefully parsing his words to calm internal dissent and solidify his political base inside the Taliban, urging his fighters to remain unified and continue the jihad, or holy war, to establish an Islamic state in Afghanistan.

But it led to the postponement of Pakistan-sponsored reconciliation talks in Murree, a power struggle within the Taliban and to the resumption of violent attacks in Afghanistan.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, though officials indicated they blamed the Taliban.

Analyst Ruttig said that, with the latest attacks in Kabul, Mansour could be sending a message of resolve to the militant rank and file as well as to the Afghan government.

At a White House briefing Friday, press secretary Josh Earnest said the U.S. “condemns in the strongest terms” the bombing in Kabul.

Omar’s death threw already-fragile peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government into flux after a second round of discussions was postponed by the militant group.

Semple’s assertion appears to be backed up by an audio tape that was recently released and purports to be from Mansour.

The report covered the first six months of 2015 and noted that the thousands of civilian casualties “demonstrate the continued failure of parties to the conflict to protect civilians from harm”. “They are spreading their propaganda by spending money, through media and some scholars to only weaken our jihad, but we will not pay attention to any of those including the peace process”.