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KABUL: A suicide car bomber killed 13 American troops in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, the deadliest single ground attack against the Nato-led force in 10 years of war in Afghanistan.
“We can confirm that 13 International Security Assistance Force members have died,” said a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul, giving no further details.
A Pentagon spokesman later confirmed all 13 soldiers killed were American. Three civilians and a police officer were also killed in the attack on a convoy of military vehicles, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry said.
Excluding aircraft crashes, it was the deadliest single incident for foreign troops since the war began in 2001.
Lethal attacks are relatively rare in heavily guarded Kabul, compared with the south and east of Afghanistan, but Saturday's killings came less than two months after insurgents launched a 20-hour assault on the US embassy in the capital.
The assault on the ISAF convoy took place late in the morning in the Darulaman area in the west of the city, near the national museum.
The former royal palace, now in ruins, is also in the area, along with several government departments, and Afghan and foreign military bases.
The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they packed a four-wheel-drive vehicle with 700 kg of explosives.
