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Car bomb kills 15 Afghan cadets, trainers outside Kabul military school

Other News Materials 21 October 2017 21:13 (UTC +04:00)
A suicide attacker rammed a car full of explosives into a bus leaving Afghanistan’s top military training center in Kabul on Saturday, killing at least 15 soldiers, including cadets and their trainers
Car bomb kills 15 Afghan cadets, trainers outside Kabul military school

A suicide attacker rammed a car full of explosives into a bus leaving Afghanistan’s top military training center in Kabul on Saturday, killing at least 15 soldiers, including cadets and their trainers, officials said, Reuters reported.

Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a particularly deadly week for Afghanistan’s security forces.

The bombing was also the second major attack in the capital Kabul in 24 hours after a suicide attack at a Shi‘ite mosque killed more than 50 worshippers on Friday night.

“Army personnel were coming out of Marshal Fahim University when a suicide bomber in a car targeted them. Fifteen soldiers who were there for training were killed and four others were wounded,” Ministry of Defence spokesman Dawlat Wazari said.

A statement from President Ashraf Ghani’s office said the bus was carrying trainers and cadets from the defense university on the western outskirts of Kabul that is home to the Afghan military’s officer training school and other military academies.

Afghan security forces have been struggling against the Taliban since most foreign troops left at the end of 2014.

U.S. President Donald Trump committed to an open-ended military training and support mission in Afghanistan in August, despite criticism that it is no closer to peace despite billions of dollars in aid and nearly 16 years of U.S. and allied operations.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for Saturday’s car bomb in an email to reporters.

The Taliban have been waging an insurgency for a decade and a half in an attempt to overthrow the Western-backed government in Kabul and re-establish a fundamentalist Islamist regime.

The insurgents now control or contest about 40 percent of Afghanistan.

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