Four Americans killed in Afghanistan blast at Bagram

Sixteen other US service members and a Polish soldier were wounded in the bombing inside the heavily fortified base at Bagram airfield north of the capital.

Washington // A Taliban suicide bomber killed four Americans at Bagram airfield in Afghanistan on Saturday, in a major breach of security at the largest US military base in the country.

The US defence secretary Ash Carter said the dead included two American soldiers and two contractors.

Sixteen other US service members and a Polish soldier were wounded in the bombing inside the heavily fortified base north of the capital.

The assault highlights rising insecurity in Afghanistan nearly two years after US-led Nato forces formally ended their combat operations.

The suicide bomber blew himself up near a dining facility inside the base, said Waheed Sediqi, spokesman for the governor of Parwan province where Bagram is located.

“The attacker was one of the Afghan labourers working there,” he said.

The base was put on lockdown following the attack.

The United States has around 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, with the largest contingent stationed at the Bagram base, one of the most heavily guarded military installations in the country.

The Bagram attack came after a powerful Taliban truck bomb struck the German consulate in Afghanistan’s northern Mazar-i-Sharif city on Thursday night, killing at least six people and wounding more than 100 others.

The insurgents are stepping up attacks nationwide before the onset of winter, when the fighting usually ebbs.

* Agence France-Presse