Eight killed as IS targets NATO convoy in Kabul

Kabul, May 3

A blast targeting an armoured NATO convoy in Kabul killed at least eight persons and wounded 28 today, including three coalition members, officials said in an attack claimed by the Islamic State.

The explosion, which came during morning rush hour on a busy road near the US embassy and NATO headquarters, killed “mostly” civilians, an interior ministry spokesman said without giving a breakdown.

NATO said three coalition service members had received “non-life threatening wounds” in the attack. “(They) are in stable condition, and are currently being treated at coalition medical facilities,” a spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan said, without confirming their nationalities.

IS claimed responsibility for the blast via its Amaq propaganda agency, saying the eight dead were all American soldiers. The militants are known to exaggerate their claims. The attack comes three weeks after the US dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on the jihadist group’s hideous in eastern Afghanistan.

NATO commander in Afghanistan General John Nicholson said the strike, which triggered global shockwaves, showed there was “no space” for IS in the war-torn country.

Monday’s attack comes as the US seeks to craft a new strategy in Afghanistan and NATO mulls boosting troop levels as they face a “stalemate” against the resurgent Taliban.

The blast, which IS said, was a suicide car bomb and NATO said was an improvised explosive device (IED), damaged two of the heavily armoured vehicles in the convoy and left a small crater in the road, witnesses and an AFP photographer said.

MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles, which are designed to withstand large explosions, are routinely used by international forces moving around Kabul.

At least three civilian cars were also damaged, with one ablaze, while windows were shattered up to several hundred metres away. Firefighters and ambulances rushed stunned survivors to hospital.

Nicholson has said the US decision to drop the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast on IS hideouts in Nangarhar province last month was a “very clear message” to the group: “If they come to Afghanistan, they will be destroyed”. Some observers have condemned the move against a militant group that is not considered as big a threat to Afghanistan as the Taliban. Others suggested it would boost the Taliban, who have been in a turf war with IS in Nangarhar. — AFP