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Death Toll in Kabul Bombing Hits 6, with More than 100 Others Wounded

A Taliban-planted bus bomb near the US Embassy and an Afghan Defense Ministry compound in the capital Kabul on Monday killed six people and wounded 105 others, about half of them children. “The target was the Defense Ministry’s technical installation,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement. Shortly after the July 1 explosion, several insurgents entered a nearby building and battled security forces for hours before eventually being killed. Four civilians and two policemen were killed in the clashes, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. The attack came as the Islamist militant group and the United States were holding their seventh round of peace talks in Qatar, focusing on a Taliban demand that foreign forces leave Afghanistan and a US demand for a guarantee that the country will not be used as a base for attacks elsewhere. In an interview with the Fox News Channel taped before the Kabul blast, US President Donald Trump referred to Afghanistan as the “Harvard of terrorists,” adding that without an American military presence, the country could be used as a base for terrorist attacks on the United States. Following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, Washington helped topple the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and has since assisted Kabul’s security forces in battling insurgents and other extremist groups, such as Islamic State and al-Qaida.