Two suicide attacks in Kabul, one targeting a play at a French-financed school, killed at least seven people yesterday, the latest in a wave of violence assaulting the city as Nato forces pull out.
The Afghan capital has been hit by a series of deadly Taliban attacks in recent weeks, highlighting the fragility of the security situation as foreign combat troops leave after more than a decade of war.
The attacks targeted a bus carrying Afghan troops in the city's suburbs in the morning, and late in the afternoon a theatre performance at the Istiqlal High School, which is attached to Kabul's long-established French cultural centre.
"A suicide bomber blew himself up among the audience in Istiqlal High School," Afghan interior ministry spokesman Sediqi Sediqqi told AFP.
At least seven people were wounded in the attack, senior Kabul police official General Farid Afzail, told AFP, adding that the bomber is thought to have been a teenager.
Afzali and the interior ministry said one foreign national was killed, without giving
further details.
But French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the "barbaric" attack had left several people dead.
In the earlier attack, the bomber who was on foot targeted a bus carrying Afghan troops in Tangi Tarakhil on the outskirts of the capital, Afzail told AFP.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack on the soldiers in a message sent to the media, but could not be reached after the school attack. Nato's force in Afghanistan will change on December 31 from a combat mission to a support role, with troop numbers cut to about 12,500 - down from a peak of130,000 in 2010.
The attacks came as Washington announced it no longer holds any prisoners in Afghanistan, a day after a damning US Senate report on the brutal treatment of "war on terror" detainees.
In March 2013, Afghan forces took control from the US of the notorious Bagram prison, renamed Parwan, located on the sprawling US military airbase, but American forces had remained in charge of nonAfghan prisoners.