An US soldier was likely to be among those killed in an attack on an American military base in Kabul, Afghanistan, CNN and Fox News have reported. The service member’s nationality was not launched.
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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.
On Friday evening, nine people were killed when explosions and gunfire erupted at Camp Integrity, a US special forces base in Kabul.
Camp Integrity is run by D.R. safety contractor Academi, which was referred to as Blackwater earlier than being bought to buyers.
Afghan officials were quick to congratulate themselves, noting that in none of the three attacks, scattered widely around the capital, did the insurgents manage to breach their targets’ inner defenses.
“The bomber was wearing a police uniform and detonated his explosives among students who had just returned from a break”, a police official said regarding the police academy bombing.
Under 24 hours prior, an enormous truck bomb blasted close to an armed force compound in a neighborhood of Kabul, killing no less than 15 individuals and injuring very almost 250.
Authorities were investigating the truck blast.
A medic quoted by the Reuters news agency said that injured people including children were rushing to a nearby hospital for treatment. Fifteen people were killed and around 300 wounded in one of the most powerful explosions to have ever shaken the Afghan capital.
The Taliban often do not claim to have organized attacks that kill large numbers of civilians, especially women and children.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for either of the attacks, which come as the Taliban steps up their summer offensive despite a bitter power transition within the militant movement.
Shortly after the explosions, military jets roared over the center of Kabul and helicopters flew overhead as the fighting continued.
“Those responsible for suicide and complex attacks in civilian-populated areas can no longer shrug off the disproportionate harm to the civilian population they cause”, Haysom said in a statement. The Taliban named his replacement as Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. That sparked a leadership struggle among senior Taliban figures, raising concerns of a succession crisis that could splinter the group.
The future of the peace talks – postponed indefinitely by Pakistan after the Taliban pulled out of a second round scheduled for Friday – is now in the balance as the Taliban leadership appears to be fracturing amid disagreement over who should inherit Mullah Omar’s mantle. In a new report on Wednesday, the UN said civilian casualties were higher than at any point during the war in Afghanistan.
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Violence in Afghanistan has left more than 400 victims between the dead and wounded over the last two days, particularly in Kabul and among civilians, with the bloodiest attacks since the Taliban leader Mullah Omar died.
