A British security contractor and two teenage girls were killed Sunday when a Taliban insurgent rammed an explosives-laden car into a European Union police vehicle in Kabul, the latest attack of Afghanistan's fighting season.
At least 18 people were wounded in the assault, which comes three days after 14 people - mostly foreigners - were killed in a Taliban attack on a Kabul guest house that trapped dozens attending a concert.
The suicide bomber targeted the foreign convoy, which included at least two vehicles of the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL), during the Sunday morning rush hour near Kabul airport.
"A suicide bomber detonated his Toyota sedan targeting a foreign forces convoy near Kabul airport today at 9:00 am," Kabul police spokesman Ebadullah Karimi told AFP.
"The target of the attacker was the foreign forces convoy. Two girls have died, 18 others are wounded, all of them civilians," he said, adding that three children were among those wounded. The two girls, who the Afghan health ministry said were teenagers, are believed to have been passers-by at the time of the attack.
EUPOL in a statement confirmed that one of the mission's vehicles was hit by the explosion near Kabul airport resulting in the death of one personnel, with two other mission members suffering minor wounds.
In London, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond "strongly condemned (the Taliban's) cowardly actions".
"I can confirm that a British security contractor is among those killed in the attack," Hammond said in a statement. "His family has been informed and my thoughts are with them at this incredibly difficult time." An AFP photographer at the scene saw troops hauling away the body of a person in military-style uniform, pulled out from the twisted wreck of a badly damaged sedan.
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