KABUL, Oct 29, (Agencies): A suicide car bomber killed 13 American troops in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, the deadliest single ground attack against the NATO-led force in 10 years of war in Afghanistan.
“We can confirm that 13 International Security Assistance Force members have died,” said a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul, giving no further details.
A Pentagon spokesman later confirmed all 13 soldiers killed were American.
Three civilians and a police officer were also killed in the attack on a convoy of military vehicles, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry said.
Excluding aircraft crashes, it was the deadliest single incident for foreign troops since the war began in 2001.
Lethal attacks are relatively rare in heavily guarded Kabul, compared with the south and east of Afghanistan, but Saturday’s killings came less than two months after insurgents launched a 20-hour assault on the US embassy in the capital.
The assault on the ISAF convoy took place late in the morning in the Darulaman area in the west of the city, near the national museum.
The former royal palace, now in ruins, is also in the area, along with several government departments, and Afghan and foreign military bases.
The Taleban later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they packed a four-wheel-drive vehicle with 700 kg of explosives.
Deadline
The Afghan government and its foreign backers are preparing for the end of 2014, the deadline for foreign combat troops to return home.
Some Afghans fear their own security forces will be unable to cope with the insurgency and the country may fall into civil war. Coalition forces have already started handing over responsibility for security to Afghan forces in some parts of the country.
“We are confident we can undertake the transition,” NATO’s senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, Simon Gass, said at a meeting in Kabul on Saturday before the attack. “If we compare the security situation to how it was two years ago, we can see very dramatic improvements in many areas.”
Also on Saturday, three Australians and an Afghan linguist were killed in Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan when an attacker wearing an Afghan National Army uniform opened fire on them, authorities in neighbouring Kandahar province said.
Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the start of the war 10 years ago, according to the United Nations, despite the presence of more than 130,000 foreign troops.
ISAF says there has recently been a fall in attacks by insurgents but this data excludes attacks that kill only civilians and attacks on Afghan security forces operating without international troops.
On Thursday, insurgents armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked two bases used by foreign troops in southern Afghanistan. An Afghan interpreter working for ISAF was killed in that attack, which stretched into Friday before the last of the four insurgents were killed.
There has been a series of high-profile assassinations, as well as day-to-day attacks by Taleban raiders, over the past year.
More than a dozen people were killed in the September attack on the US embassy and ISAF headquarters.
Germany on Saturday condemned a Taleban car bomb attack on a NATO military convoy in the Afghan capital Kabul that left 17 dead.
“Foreign Affairs Minister Guido Westerwelle condemns in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attack on the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers,” a spokesman said in a statement.
“Germany and its allies will continue with the transfering of responsibility for security matters to the Afghan authorities and will support the difficult process of internal reconciliation in Afghanistan,” the statement said.
A Taleban attacker blew up his vehicle next to a US-run bus travelling through the southwest of the city, killing 13 members of Western military forces. Three bystanders and a policeman also died in the blast.
Saturday’s blast was the deadliest for the coalition since the death of 30 US troops, including 25 US Special Operations Forces, whose helicopter was shot down in mid-August south of Kabul in Wardak province.
It comes as NATO prepares to hand large areas of Afghanistan to local forces, and ahead of two international conferences aimed at bridging peace.
Germany has 5,000 troops committed to the alliance, the second largest number after the US and the UK.
Recent major attacks in Afghanistan: 2011

• Oct. 29: A suicide bomber driving a van loaded with explosives hits a NATO convoy, killing 13 American troops and four Afghans in Kabul.
• Sept. 20: An insurgent with a bomb wrapped in his turban assassinates former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading a government effort to broker peace with the Taleban. The explosion kills four bodyguards and also wounds of a key presidential adviser working to lure Taleban fighters off the battlefield.
• Sept. 13: Taleban insurgents fire rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles at the US Embassy, NATO headquarters and other buildings, killing seven Afghans in the coordinated daylight attack. No embassy or NATO staff members were hurt.
• Aug. 19: Taleban suicide bombers storm the British Council, the U.K.’s international cultural relations body, killing eight people during an eight-hour firefight as two English language teachers and their bodyguard hid in a locked panic room on the anniversary of the country’s independence from Britain.
• Aug. 6: A CH-47 Chinook helicopter crashes in eastern Wardak province after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, killing 30 US special operation troops, a translator, and seven Afghan commandos.
• June 29: Nine insurgents armed with explosive vests, rifles and rocket launchers storm the InterContinental Hotel in Kabul, killing at least 12 people and holding off NATO and Afghan forces for five hours.
• June 19: Suicide bomber hits German NATO convoy in Kunduz in the north, killing three civilians, wounding 11 others.
• April 27: A veteran Afghan military pilot opens fire at Kabul’s airport, killing eight US troops and an American civilian contractor.
• Jan. 28: A suicide bomber attacks a Western-style supermarket in the capital, killing eight inside.

2010

• May 18: A Taleban suicide bomber attacks a NATO convoy in Kabul, killing 18 people including five US troops, most of them colonels, as well as a Canadian officer.
• Feb. 26: Suicide attackers strike two residential hotels in Kabul, killing 20 people, including seven Indian nationals.