Taliban: Suicide blast in response to Obama

Omar Sobhani / Reuters

Afghan security force members inspect the site of a car bomb attack in Kabul, May 2, just hours after President Barack Obama left the capital following an unannounced visit.

 

Updated at 12:47 a.m. ET — A suicide bomber rammed a car full of explosives into a blast wall in the Afghan capital on Wednesday, an interior ministry spokesman said.

Sediq Sediqqi said that there was only one attacker, dismissing reports that more than one insurgent was involved in the assault against a housing compound for westerners.

Police chief Ayub Salangi told Reuters the car bomb exploded on Jalalabad road, the main road out of the capital heading east, where several U.S. military bases and compounds housing Westerners are located. A guard and five civilians were killed. Salangi told NBC News that one of the civilians is a school child.

Salangi said one of those compounds, known as “Green Village”, was the target.

Afghanistan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack was in response to President Obama’s visit to Kabul and the signing of a strategic pact with President Hamid Karzai’s government hours earlier.

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A second blast struck the area later, a Reuters witness said. An Afghan official told the Associated Press that 3 explosions occurred in the eastern part of the capital.

A statement from the U.S. Embassy said there were no reports of casualties or injures of Embassy personnel.

A spokesman from NATO headquarters in the country said it was aware of several explosions. Reuters witnesses in the center of the city also heard the blast.

Obama left earlier after making a televised address to Americans from Bagram Air Base north of the capital.

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A U.S. embassy warning system urged staff to stay away from windows and take cover. The embassy is in the main diplomatic area in the center of the city.

This story includes reporting from NBC’s Akbar Shinwari, Reuters and The Associated Press.

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