US President Donald Trump tweeted that secret meetings that were to be held at Camp David with Taliban leaders and the Afghan president on Sunday were cancelled following a bombing in Kabul last week.
"They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people," Trump tweeted about the Taliban. "I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations," the US president said.
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Kabul has been gripped by a surge in deadly violence even after the US and the insurgents reached an agreement "in principle" that would see the US pull thousands of troops from Afghanistan in return for various Taliban security promises.
The Taliban had killed at least 10 people including two NATO troops in a Kabul bombing on Thursday, another attack on the Afghan capital just as a US envoy returned to talks with the insurgents on a troop withdrawal. The car bomb blast shook Shash Darak, a heavily fortified area adjacent to the Green Zone and home to several important complexes including the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service.
Apparent surveillance footage of the attack, which occurred at about 10:10am (0540 GMT), showed a grey minivan explode just after it had cut in front of a line of white SUVs waiting to make a right turn onto a street.
Resolute Support, the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan, said a Romanian and an American service member had been killed in the explosion.
The American death brings to at least 16 the number of US military killed in action in Afghanistan this year, just as Washington is seeking a way out of its longest war.
On Twitter, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, saying a "martyrdom seeker"—or suicide bomber—had triggered the car bomb and that "foreign invaders" were killed.
-Inputs from PTI
