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A Taliban suicide bomber killed 8 military officers on an air force bus in Kabul on Wednesday, Afghani officials said, as US soldiers continue to withdraw from the country. Kabul has been relatively peaceful after Presidential election held on June 14th, despite a few street demonstrations over politicians locked in a vote fraud dispute.
“As a result of a suicide attack this morning on an ANA (Afghan National Army) air force bus in (west) Kabul, eight army officers were martyred and 13 wounded.The wounded personnel have been taken to hospital”, General Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the defense ministry said in a statement.
According to Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the interior ministry, five civilians were also injured in the attack, which targeted a bus carrying military personnel to work.
On its Twitter account, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, and said that the suicide bomber approached the bus on foot before detonating his explosive-laden vest.Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said that 25 people were killed in the attack, although the insurgents have been known to regularly exaggerate death tolls.
There had been a sharp rise in violence on Election Day nationwide, but Kabul has not seen a major attack since June 7th when a suicide attack against Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah killed twelve people; Abdullah himself escaped unharmed. Abdullah has said that he will reject the ongoing election count’s result alleging fraud against him in the Presidential race between him and his rival Ashraf Ghani.
The 50,000-strong NATO combat force will leave Afghanistan by December, but 10,000 US soldiers may stay till next year if US President Barack Obama signs a security deal with the White House.
Recent weeks have been witness to fierce fighting between security forces and the Taliban in the province of Helmand in the south. The police force and the Afghani army have been counter-attacking an offensive by 800 Taliban fighters on the district of Sangin, a center of the lucrative opium trade. Sangin has for years been the scene of battle between US-led NATO forces and the Taliban before NATO forces pulled out of the region in May.