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Blasts target main US Afghan base | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
The US military says two bomb blasts near the gate to its main Afghan base have injured at least three people. | |
A car bombing outside the Bagram base was followed moments later by a suicide bombing, US officials said. | |
"No US soldier was present at that moment but three contractors have suffered minor injuries," a US military spokesman told the AFP news agency. | |
Bagram air base is about 60km (40 miles) north of Kabul. It is the main base for the US-led coalition force. | |
"There were two explosions, first a vehicle and then a suicide bomber wearing an explosives vest, near the gate," Sergeant First Class Joel Peavey told AFP. | |
Military officials also said that three Nato soldiers had been killed after being wounded in a bomb blast in the south on Tuesday. | |
Taleban insurgency | |
Originally built by the Soviet military during its invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, some 10,000 troops are based at Bagram. | |
They are mostly Americans, but also include French, Egyptian, New Zealand, Turkish, German and Australian troops serving as part of the coalition. | |
In addition the base houses the US military's main prison facility in Afghanistan for people detained by US forces. | |
The latest deaths in the south take the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to 52, according to the icasualties.org website that tracks casualties in Afghanistan. | |
Nato has not divulged the identities of the dead soldiers or the exact location of the attack, but a Canadian general has been reported by the AP news agency as saying that they were all Canadian. | Nato has not divulged the identities of the dead soldiers or the exact location of the attack, but a Canadian general has been reported by the AP news agency as saying that they were all Canadian. |
The south of Afghanistan has become the centre of the Taleban insurgency after they were forced from power by US-led forces in 2001. |