Taliban Suicide Bomber Kills Afghan Soldiers By Ehsanullah Amiri and Margherita Stancati See note
http://www.wsj.com/articles/taliban-suicide-bomber-targets-military-bus-in-kabul-killing-at-least-five-1418284294?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird….
Petraeus’s last assignments in the Army were as commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) from July 4, 2010, to July 18, 2011. And then this intel challenged general ran the CIA….rsk
KABUL—A Taliban suicide bomber Thursday targeted a bus carrying Afghan soldiers in Kabul, killing at least five troops in the latest of a string of deadly attacks that have shaken the capital.
The attacker approached on foot an Afghan National Army bus that had stopped on the side of the road to pick up troops early in the morning, said Hashmat Stanikzai, a spokesman for Kabul police. Ten soldiers and three civilians were injured in the attack.
More than 100 troops were on the bus at the time of the explosion, which partly charred the vehicle and blew out its windows.
Shortly after the blast, Afghan security forces cordoned off the area and the wounded were taken to a hospital.
The Taliban in a statement claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was aimed at military officers of the “puppet administration” in Kabul. The insurgent movement said it had been tracking the movements of the bus for a long time.
Targeting military vehicles is a tactic the Taliban have used many times before, especially in Kabul. A similar attack in October against a Ministry of Defense bus, for instance, killed eight people and injured more than 20 in the city.
Last month, a car bomb struck a British Embassy convoy, killing one British citizen and five Afghans.
Violence has intensified in the Afghan capital in recent weeks, testing the new government of President Ashraf Ghani just as the combat mission of the U.S.-led coalition is winding down.
Thursday’s attack, however, was the first in Kabul in just over a week, after a brief lull in violence following a series of near-daily incidents in the city.
Recent targets have included a guesthouse belonging to a nongovernmental organization, where four civilians—three South Africans and one Afghan—were killed.
Separately, local officials in the district of Ghorband in Parwan province said that on Wednesday afternoon five civilians were killed following a suspected drone strike.
“That boom was a NATO airstrike, most probably a drone strike,” said Saeed Sediqqi, the district governor of Ghorband.
The coalition confirmed that it had carried out a “precision air strike” in the area, saying that the strike resulted in the deaths of five “enemy combatants.”
Write to Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com
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