KABUL--A suicide bomber attacked a compound used by U.S.
counternarcotics advisers in Kabul on Tuesday, killing five foreign
guards in the latest insurgent strike in the Afghan capital.
The attacker, wearing a guard uniform, was allowed to drive a
motorcycle through the first checkpoint into a fortified camp and
blew himself up at the gate of a secured compound inside it called
Camp Gibson, not far from the capital's airport, Afghan and foreign
officials said.
Foreign advisers to the nearby Afghan counternarcotics
department, including U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
officials, live in Camp Gibson, which shares an entrance with
offices of DynCorp International Inc., one of the largest U.S.
defense contractors in Afghanistan.
The fatalities were all guards: Indian, Nepali, Fijian and
Kenyan citizens, said an official from the U.S.-led military
coalition. The explosion was surprisingly powerful, injuring 11
more people. "There was a lot packed on the back of the
motorcycle," the official said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the
targets were foreign spies.
It is unclear why the attacker was allowed through the first
gate despite strict security checks. Some employees of Camp Gibson
said they believe he worked there as a guard, something Afghan
officials deny.
"You need to show a badge to get inside," said an employee of
Camp Gibson. "This wasn't just somebody from outside, he worked
there."
Samir Delsoz, who owns a shop opposite the camp, said that at
around 6:30 a.m. local time he saw a man in a uniform on a
motorbike driving slowly back-and-forth outside the gate.
"He looked suspicious to me, he even glared at me. And then he
entered the camp," recalls Mr. Delsoz. "I was relaxing on a bed in
my shop when suddenly I heard a big boom. The windows shattered and
I injured my leg." He said that when he ran outside, he saw smoke
rising from inside the camp.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul condemned the attack: "Attacks like
this will not deter the Afghan people and the international
community from continuing to work together to further the
development of Afghanistan."
Tuesday's attack comes less than a week after Taliban fighters
took over a building under construction to launch an attack on
Kabul's international airport. Afghan forces killed the militants
before they were able to cause damage to the facility. Two days
earlier, a car bomb ripped through a market in a town in eastern
Afghanistan, killing as many as 89 people in one of the worst
attacks on civilians during the 13-year war.
The violence comes as U.S. and United Nations officials are
helping Afghanistan overcome a political crisis sparked by a
disputed election. Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah
rejected preliminary results that showed his rival, Ashraf Ghani,
in the lead, saying widespread fraud took place in the June 14
runoff.
Under a deal brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry, the two
candidates agreed to full audit of the more-than-eight-million
ballots monitored by their agents and independent observers under
the supervision of the U.N.
Six days into the recount, the audit was facing trouble, with
the process taking much longer than anticipated and no agreement
between the two camps on how to nullify fraudulent votes.
Underscoring their differences, the audit was stopped for a second
time on Tuesday, when agents of Mr. Ghani again walked out of the
vote count over a disagreement with their opponents, said members
of Mr. Abdullah's team.
James Dobbins, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan
and Pakistan, said he was confident the two teams were close to an
agreement on the audit criteria and that the pace of the recount
would speed up.
"We anticipated that given the complexity of the process in the
first few days there going to be questions that arose that needed
to be addressed," Mr. Dobbins told reporters in Kabul on Tuesday.
"Both candidates have explicitly and unqualifiedly agreed to accept
the results of the audit, and we anticipate that they will do
so."
As part of the deal brokered by Mr. Kerry, the two candidates
agreed to set up a unity government that would include the losing
camp. The two camps are currently negotiating the details of this
political framework.
Write to Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com
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