Six killed in blast at Kabul military academy

Afghan police and security officials said the casualties took place when an assailant blew himself up at the entrance to a military training center in the west of the capital city on Thursday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one official said the attacker detonated his explosives after being prevented from entering the Marshal Fahim National Defense University — one of Afghanistan’s main officer training academies — to the west of Kabul, according to Reuters.

The official said the blast occurred as cadets were leaving the college, killing six people and wounding six others.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

War-wracked Afghanistan has been struggling to stop scores of deadly attacks by the Taliban militant group almost across the country over the past months.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks on security installations in their so-called spring offensive despite being involved in direct talks with the United States, rejecting calls by the US’s chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad to lay down their arms.

Taliban: Talks with US stumble over troop withdrawalThe Taliban militant group says its talks with the US in Qatar have become bogged down over the key issue of a timetable for the withdrawal of American and foreign forces from Afghanistan.

A sixth round of talks between the US and Taliban recently ended in the Qatari capital, Doha, with no tangible progress. The Taliban have said peace negotiations were stumbling over the question of when foreign forces would depart the war-ravaged country, if they would at all.

The Daesh terrorist group is also present and carries out attacks in Afghanistan.