KABUL,
Afghanistan — A bomb hidden in the median strip of an avenue in Kabul
was detonated as a convoy of coalition troops passed by Monday morning,
apparently killing two foreign soldiers, according to reports from
Afghan officials.
The
American-led International Security Assistance Force announced that two
of its soldiers had been killed on Monday as a result of an enemy
attack. In line with official policy, it did not release the
nationalities of the two and described the location of the attack only
as eastern Afghanistan.
The
head of the criminal investigation division of the Afghan police,
Rohullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said the bomb went
off at 8:45 a.m. and struck a Toyota Land Cruiser. In addition, he said,
an Afghan passer-by was wounded.
The episode took place in eastern Kabul, not far from the scene of a suicide attack last week
on a camp housing foreign workers and officials. Two Afghan private
security guards were killed in that attack, along with three attackers,
who failed to enter the compound.
Monday’s attack was the latest in a series of bombings in the capital over the past few weeks, including one that hit the car of a women’s rights leader, Shukria Barakzai, and another that targeted but missed the Kabul police chief.
The victims on Monday were the first coalition soldiers to die from an attack in Kabul since Sept. 16,
when a Polish soldier, an American soldier and an American civilian
were killed in a suicide bombing outside a Special Operations base. The
last time a coalition soldier died in Afghanistan was Nov. 14, when Sgt.
First Class Michael Cathcart of the United States Army Special Forces
was reported killed by enemy fire during a combat mission in Kunduz Province, in the north of the country.
Combat
operations by American and international forces have almost completely
ceased in Afghanistan, except by Special Operations and Special Forces
troops, in preparation for the official end of the combat mission on
Dec. 31, when only 12,500 coalition soldiers, 9,800 of them American,
are scheduled to remain in the country. At the peak of the mission,
there were about 140,000 coalition soldiers in Afghanistan.
President Obama has reportedly ordered that some limited forms of combat operations can continue in 2015, however, including counterterrorism operations that would involve American Special Operations forces.