A car bomb aimed at a convoy of foreign forces has exploded in the capital of Afghanistan, wounding four US service members and causing a number of other casualties, officials said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast which occurred in the busy Jalalabad area in the east of Kabul on Friday, the second such attack in the city in two days.
On Thursday, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed a suicide attack outside a military training academy that killed at least six people.
A spokesperson for US forces in Afghanistan said the car bomb hit a US convoy and four service members had suffered minor injuries. He gave no further details.
However, there were conflicting reports about the total number of casualties caused by the blast.
An Afghan security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press, said as many as nine people had been killed and six civilians wounded in the blast.
The Taliban’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said in a statement that the attack was directed a convoy of foreign forces, killing 10 of them and destroying two vehicles.
The explosion sent a plume of white smoke into the sky. It took place in an area with several large security compounds which has seen repeated attacks over the years.
Photographs circulating on social media showed a heavily damaged white armoured Land Cruiser, surrounded by fire fighters.
Kabul has been on high alert, with security checkpoints reinforced across the city in recent days.
Friday’s attack, shortly before next week’s Eid holiday, came as a delegation of Taliban officials met senior Afghan politicians in Moscow for discussions about a possible peace process to end 18 years of war in Afghanistan.
The Taliban have been talking with US diplomats for several months about plans to agree to a withdrawal of more than 20,000 US and NATO coalition troops in exchange for an agreement to prevent Afghanistan from once again being used as a base for armed attacks.
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