U.S. Special Operations Base Attacked in Kabul

[Sdiver]

Thoughts and Prayers out ...

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Three American personnel wounded in assault that follows explosions targeting Afghan police academy, Afghan army compound

KABUL—Militants attacked a U.S. Special Operations forces base on Friday night, hours after deadly explosions targeted a Kabul police academy and an Afghan army compound, Afghan and foreign officials said.

An explosion took place outside the headquarters of the U.S. military’s elite special forces in the Afghan capital, triggering a firefight that continued for hours. The base, known as Camp Integrity, is a fortified compound close to Kabul’s airport.

“There was an attack on Camp Integrity at approximately 10:15 p.m. local time,” said U.S. Army Col. Brian Tribus, a spokesman for U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan. In a statement Saturday, the coalition said that one of its service members and two insurgents were killed in the attack on the camp. A foreign official said several Americans were injured.

The attack took place hours after a suicide bomber blew himself up among students at an Afghan police academy in Kabul, a senior Afghan security official said. Besides at least 20 fatalities, at least 20 people were wounded.

The Taliban, who are waging an insurgency against the Afghan government and its foreign allies, said they were behind the attacks on the police academy and on the U.S. base.

Friday’s violence ended a monthlong lull in the Afghan capital and was shocking even by Kabul’s grim standard. It came at a time of deep divisions within the Taliban’s leadership, following news the group’s founder and leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has been dead for over two years.

Early in the morning, a truck bomb targeted an Afghan army compound, causing vast damage to residential buildings and a market area in Kabul’s Shah Shaheed neighborhood. At least 15 people were killed and several hundred wounded in the attack, Afghan officials said.

The bomb went off at around 1 a.m. local time and targeted an Afghan army compound that is close to residential houses and a market area in the neighborhood of Shah Shaheed. Multistoried buildings collapsed, storefronts ripped up and charred cars were scattered. The explosion left a crater several yards deep and as wide as the street, and it shattered the windows of houses far away.

No one claimed responsibility for the truck bomb.

Medical workers were assessing the human toll of the attack. The majority of the wounded suffered minor injuries, many of them caused by broken glass. Sayed Zafar Hashemi, a spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, updated the casualty figures on Friday afternoon, saying 30 children were among the wounded. The ministry of health earlier said as many as 400 people had been injured.

Hours after the blast, Ahmad Khan was surveying what was left of his shop, located a few hundred yards from the blast site. “My shop is destroyed. I put my lifetime savings into it,” said Mr. Khan, who used to sell spare parts for cars. “What kind of jihad is this?” he asked, waving a Quran that was torn to pieces.

Kheyal Ahmad, a resident of Shah Shaheed, said his family was sleeping when the explosion blew out the windows of his house. “The explosion woke us all up. It was so close it almost felt like it happened inside our house. The children were crying and we could smell the smoke of the blast,” he said. “There are only ruins in the neighborhood.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-spec...bul-1438980385