Twelve killed, including 3 US contractors, in Kabul attack

At least 11 people were killed and more than 60 wounded when a vehicle bomb exploded outside a hospital in central Kabul on Saturday afternoon, the latest in a wave of attacks to hit the Afghan capital in recent weeks.

In addition to those killed, as many as 66 people were wounded in the attack, said Wahidullah Mayar, a Health Ministry spokesman.

The dead included three civilian contractors with the military alliance, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation spokesman Sernando Estreooa said in a statement.

The attack Saturday struck near the private Shinozada hospital in the capital’s Macrorayan neighborhood. “Regardless of the target of their attacks, insurgents continue to inflict a heavy toll on innocent Afghan civilians”.

A minimum of one armored auto within the convoy had been destroyed by the blast.

Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri’s recently pledged his group’s allegiance to Mansour, in a move which could bolster his accession amid the growing infighting within the Afghan militant movement.

The Taliban denied it was behind the Kabul attack.

Afghan users on Twitter said alarms could be heard ringing in the area following the explosion.

The NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Kabul confirmed the deaths of three contractors of the alliances, all of them indicated to be civilians.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for what some reports say was a suicide bombing.

A six-story office building across the street from the blast had all of its windows broken, with many inside wounded from broken glass.

While the U.S. had formally ended its operations in Afghanistan and withdrew its combat troops last December, more than 9,000 U.S. soldiers remain in the country in an advisory and counter-terrorism capacity.

“A suicide auto bomb struck the the Fourth Macroyan residential neighbourhood of Kabul city and there have been some casualties”, Kabul police spokesman Ebadullah Karimi told AFP.