Taliban blast kills U.S. soldier, several civilians in Kabul

A Taliban car bomb exploded and killed U.S. and Romanian service members and 10 civilians in a busy diplomatic area near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Thursday, the second major attack this week as the Afghan government warned that a U.S.-Taliban deal on ending America’s longest war was moving too fast.

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, under pressure after announcing earlier in the week that “on principle” he and the Taliban had reached an agreement, returned abruptly to Qatar, site of the talks, later Thursday, officials close to the negotiations said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

The NATO Resolute Support mission, whose offices were near the blast, said the two service members were “killed in action,” without providing details or releasing their names. The American service member was the fourth killed in the past two weeks in Afghanistan.

“Peace with a group that is still killing innocent people is meaningless,” President Ashraf Ghani, whose government has been shut out of the U.S.-Taliban talks, said in a statement.

Another 42 people were wounded, Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said. Surveillance footage showed the bomber’s vehicle turning into a checkpoint and exploding – and a passer-by trying to sprint away just seconds before the blast.

The Taliban said they targeted vehicles of “foreigners” trying to enter the heavily guarded Shashdarak area where Afghan national security authorities have offices. British soldiers at the scene retrieved what appeared to be the remains of a NATO vehicle.

The explosion followed a Taliban attack against a foreign compound late Monday that killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 100, almost all of them local civilians. An Associated Press reporter on the phone with the U.S. Embassy when Thursday’s blast occurred heard sirens start blaring there.

The especially violent week occurs as Khalilzad has been in Kabul briefing Ghani and other Afghan leaders on the U.S.-Taliban deal to end nearly 18 years of fighting that he says just needs President Donald Trump’s approval to become a reality. Khalilzad has not commented publicly on this week’s attacks.