6 U.S. TROOPS KILLED IN SUICIDE BOMBING

Attack came during meeting near U.S. base

Six American servicemembers were killed Monday in a suicide bombing during a meeting near a U.S. base north of Kabul. It was the largest U.S. loss of life from an attack this year, according to two senior Defense officials.

The meeting was targeted by a motorcyclist carrying a bomb. In addition to the servicemembers killed, three were injured, according to NATO command headquarters in Afghanistan. The attack occurred outside a sprawling U.S. airbase in Bagram, 34 miles north of Kabul.

Two senior Defense officials who confirmed that all six dead were Americans were not authorized to speak publicly. One official confirmed the deaths, while the second confirmed they were killed during a meeting.

“We’re deeply saddened by this loss,” said U.S. Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, deputy chief of staff for NATO operations communication in Afghanistan.

In a separate incident in Kabul on Sunday, an American woman was shot and killed. Monday, the State Department confirmed the death of Lisa Akbari in the Afghan capital but declined to provide further details.

The six troops killed Monday equal the largest loss of life in a single incident this year for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan. On Oct. 2, six airmen died when their C-130 cargo plane crashed at Jalalabad. This year, 16 U.S. troops have died in combat, many of them in aircraft crashes, according to Pentagon announcements.

The Taliban, which wages an insurgency against the U.S.backed Afghan government, claimed responsibility for Monday’s bombing in an email to the Associated Press. There are about 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, part of a NATO force of 13,000.

Last week, the Pentagon announced that the security situation for the second half of 2015 in Afghanistan “deteriorated with an increase in effective insurgent attacks.”