North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Contractors Among 40 Killed in Kabul Bomb Blast

At least 50 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in a wave of attacks on the Afghan army, police and U.S. special forces in the Afghan capital Kabul.

In the first attack, a powerful truck bomb tore through the centre of Kabul just after midnight, killing 15 people and wounding around 240 on Friday.

AFP adds from Kabul: Fifteen more fatalities were confirmed on Saturday from a barrage of bombings in Kabul, taking the toll to 51 in the deadliest day for the city in years as Afghanistan battles an escalating Taliban insurgency. Friday’s attacks, one near a government and military complex in a residential area and the other a suicide bombing outside the police academy, sent the strongest message yet to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that militants are still able to strike at his heavily fortified seat of power.

The deaths, injuries and damages are another blow to a tentative peace process that held its first meeting in July but was suspended last week.

Explosions and gunfire also erupted when Camp Integrity, a base near the airport housing US special forces, came under attack yesterday, killing one North Atlantic Treaty Organisation service member whose nationality was not revealed.

The preliminary blast brought on by a suicide automotive bomb on the gate was adopted by different explosions and a firefight that lasted a few hours, he stated.

There are still about 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as part of two missions, one focused on training and assisting Afghan forces, the other on carrying out counterterrorism operations.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the base attack, which followed a Taliban suicide bombing outside the Afghan police academy in the capital that killed 25 cadets. Police said the blast killed at least 22 members of a pro-government militia.

The attacker walked into a group of recruits waiting outside the academy and detonated his explosives-laden vest, said a police officer, who goes by the name of Mabibullha. In the past two weeks, the Taliban admitted that their founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar, was dead, and apparently had been since early 2013.

The death marked the second global service member killed in Afghanistan this year after most foreign troops withdrew at the end of 2014, 13 years after the U.S.-backed military intervention to topple the Taliban’s Islamist regime. 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”. The Taliban named his replacement as Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks on the police academy and the American base. A clear message has been delivered to the civilian population and the Afghan fighting forces that oppose the Taliban. “I assume that was slightly over-optimistic”. The UN mission in Afghanistan said the wave of violence was the worst since the organization began recording civilian casualties in 2009.