Suicide bomber targets Afghan army bus

A Taliban suicide bomber targeted an Afghan army bus in Kabul on Thursday and killed three people and wounded 10, the interior ministry said, the fourth high-profile attack in the capital since Monday, when the new president was sworn in.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Thursday's blast and its reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, urged Afghans to wage "jihad" to establish a Islamic rule in Afghanistan, calling the election a "publicity stunt."

"You would have, by now, come around to know what sort of unqualified figures, being loyal to foreigners' interests, have been imposed on you by the Americans," the Taliban leader said in his yearly message for Eid Al-Adha, one of the most important festivals in the Muslim calendar.

Seven people were killed when the international airport was attacked on Monday, while two bombs detonating in the east and west of the city on Wednesday killed at least seven people.

The Taliban also claimed responsibility for the earlier attacks, vowing to fight the new "stooge regime."

President Ashraf Ghani was inaugurated on Monday after months of deadlock over who won the election. Under the terms of a U.S.-brokered deal ending the standoff, the new president and his former rival, Abdullah Abdullah, will share power.

But during the paralysis in Kabul while the deal was reached, the Taliban launched attacks in an attempt regain strategic territory in provinces such as Helmand in the south and Kunduz in the north.

On Tuesday, Ghani signed the pact security pact with the United States that his predecessor, Hamid Karzai had rejected and which the Taliban have denounced. The deal allows about 10,000 American troops to remain in Afghanistan after the international combat mission ends on Dec. 31, 2014.

Reuters