Boy suicide bomber kills 6 in attack near NATO’s Kabul HQ

A teenage suicide bomber killed six people in an attack near the entrance of the NATO-led international coalition headquarters in Kabul today, reported Reuters. 

All six killed were civilians, and several of the wounded were children, local officials told Reuters.

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Kabul police said the boy, who detonated his explosives as he bicycled near the entrance of NATO's Camp Eggers today, was 14 years old. The Taliban has claimed the attack but claims the target was the CIA's Kabul office and was carried out by a 28-year-old, according to Reuters.

Afghan interior ministry spokeman Sediq Sediqqi laid the blame on the Taliban's radical Haqqani network and suggested it might have been a response to Friday's US blacklisting of the group as a terror network, said the Telegraph's Kabul correspondent. 

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz today condemned the incident. "Forcing underage youth to do their dirty work again proves the insurgency's despicable tactics," Reuters cited Katz as saying. 

Afghanistan today celebrates a national holiday, with high-ranking officials streaming to Kabul to commemorate the death of the legendary Ahmad Shah Massoud, who fought the Soviets and later the Taliban and was killed by militants on September 9, 2001. 

The violence comes amid growing concern over Afghanistan's security ahead of the planned 2014 withdrawal of foreign troops. Some 45 NATO-led soldiers were killed this year in what is referred to as "green on blue attacks," or assaults by people disguised as Afghan soldiers, in comparison with 35 such incidents last year, according to Al Jazeera.