Burqa-clad Taliban suicide bomber targets Nato in Afghanistan – The Guardian

US troops take part in a practice medical evacuation in Helmand province in Afghanistan last month. Photograph: Omar Sobhani/Reuters

A Nato soldier from the country of Georgia and two Afghan civilians have been killed after a Taliban suicide bomber dressed in a burqa rammed his motorcycle into an international convoy.

The attack on Thursday evening hit the Nato patrol near the town of Qarabagh, 18 miles (30km) north of Kabul, the Afghan capital.

It was the second suicide bombing in as many days that targeted Nato. On Wednesday, a suicide attacker hit a convoy on the edge of the southern city of Kandahar, killing two US soldiers and wounding another four. Responsibility for both attacks were claimed by the Taliban.

According to the US military, three other Georgian soldiers were wounded in Thursdays bombing, as well as two US service members and an Afghan interpreter.

The military said the wounded were in stable conditions and receiving treatment at the US military hospital at Bagram airbase, also north of Kabul.

The district governor in Qarabagh, Abdul Sami Sharifi, said the attacker concealed his explosives beneath the burqa. They were set off when he rammed his motorcycle into the patrol vehicles, Sharifi said.

The Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the Associated Press by phone on Friday that one of its fighters from Takhar province carried out the attack at 8pm. He claimed 11 Americans were killed, although the insurgents routinely exaggerate their claims.

Meanwhile, in southern Helmand province, the Taliban stormed a market on Friday in the Gareshk district and fired at a nearby police station, according to the district police chief, Ismail Khan Khopalwaq. The market was closed and no casualties were reported in the attack.

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Burqa-clad Taliban suicide bomber targets Nato in Afghanistan - The Guardian