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Blast at U.S. Base in Kabul Kills 3 Coalition Soldiers | |
(about 7 hours later) | |
KABUL, Afghanistan — Three soldiers with the American-led coalition were killed and five were wounded on Tuesday after a suicide car bomber struck their convoy at the gates of an American military base in Kabul, according to Afghan and American officials. | |
The attack took place just outside an American Special Operations base. There was no confirmation from the International Security Assistance Force about the nationalities of the victims. | |
On the same day, the Afghan interior minister confirmed in testimony before Parliament that the past six months had been the deadliest of the 13-year-long conflict with the Taliban, with 1,368 Afghan police officers killed and 2,370 wounded since March 21, the beginning of the current Afghan year. Police casualties have generally run at twice the level of Afghan Army casualties through much of the war. | |
The minister, Mohammad Omar Daudzai, also said the Taliban had carried out 700 attacks against the police during that period, and he blamed foreign fighters — a formulation commonly understood to mean Pakistani militants — working with Taliban forces for many of the assaults. | |
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Sediq Sediqqi, said that 13 civilians had been wounded in Tuesday’s attack, but that none had been killed. He also said 17 vehicles had been damaged. | |
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the bombing in a post on Twitter. He later said in a statement that the civilian casualties had been caused by glass shattering in car windows and were unintentional. | |
The attack took place near a crowded intersection, Massoud Circle, opposite the American Embassy and in front of the military base, around 8 a.m., in the middle of rush hour. | |
Mr. Sediqqi said a maroon Toyota Corolla packed with explosives exploded near a two-vehicle ISAF convoy. |