Car bomb kills 15 cadets, trainers

AFGHANISTAN: A suicide attacker rammed a car full of explosives into a bus leaving Afghanistan’s top military training centre in Kabul on Saturday, local time, killing at least 15 soldiers, including cadets and their trainers, officials said.

Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a particularly deadly week for Afghanistan’s security forces.

‘‘Army personnel were coming out of Marshal Fahim University when a suicide bomber in a car targeted them. Fifteen soldiers who were there for training were killed and four others were wounded,’’ Ministry of Defence spokesman Dawlat Wazari said.

A statement from President Ashraf Ghani’s office said the bus was carrying trainers and cadets from the defence university on the western outskirts of Kabul that is home to the Afghan military’s officer training school and other military academies.

Afghan security forces have been struggling against the Taliban since most foreign troops left at the end of 2014.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the car bomb in an email to reporters.

The Taliban have been waging an insurgency for a decade and a half in an attempt to overthrow the Western-backed government in Kabul and re-establish a fundamentalist Islamist regime.

The insurgents now control or contest about 40 per cent of Afghanistan.

Afghan security forces including police were being killed at a rate of about 600 per month.

This week’s toll looked to be particularly heavy for Afghan forces after attacks across the country. including Taliban fighters using captured Humvee vehicles as vehicle bombs to ram into fortified compounds.