Suicide vehicle bombing targeting convoy kills 3 in Afghanistan

On August 7, a Taliban assault on a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation army base close to Kabul’s worldwide airport killed an American soldier and eight Afghan contractors.

Three victims were civilian North Atlantic Treaty Organisation contractors and the other nine were Afghan civilians, officials said.

The president reportedly vowed that all measures would be adopted to eliminate terrorists activities.

The massive explosion in the residential neighborhood was heard a long distance, with the site of the devastation showing wreckage of burning vehicles and bloodied bodies collected by the police.

Colonel Brian Tribus, a US spokesman for the worldwide forces in Afghanistan, declined to disclose the nationality of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation contractors, but said one had died in the blast and two others had succumbed to their injuries shortly afterwards.

The bombing killed at least 11 Afghan civilians and one foreigner and wounded 66, said Wahidullah Mayar, a Health Ministry spokesman. Initial reports indicated the vehicle bombing took place near the private Shinozada hospital in the capital’s Macrorayan area and injured more than 60 people, according to the Associated Press.

US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces ended their combat mission in Afghanistan in December past year, although a 13,000-strong residual force remains for training and counter-terrorism operations.

Two weeks ago, as Chinese and US diplomats stood by, Pakistani officials convened the first direct peace talks between senior Afghan and Taliban officials in a decade.

The insurgents are known to distance themselves from attacks that result in a large number of civilian casualties.

A auto bomb, thought to have targeted foreign security personnel in Kabul on Saturday, has killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens more.

That may reflect confusion within the insurgents’ ranks, in the wake of a struggle over who would succeed Mullah Mohammad Omar, the longtime Taliban leader whose death in 2013 was disclosed only in the past month.

But interestingly, Taliban has denied they were behind the attack as most of the attack in the country has been done by them.