Car bomb attacks in Afghanistan kill 6 Americans, 1 Afghan doctor and injured 10 others

Six Americans were killed Saturday in Afghanistan in two separate incidents.  Five of them, including two civilians, were killed when their State Department convoy was struck by a car bomb as it headed to a local school to donate books to students.

Another American civilian was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan.

Screenshot of video coverage of blast in Afghanistan killing 5 Americans

The bomb attack on the convoy took place in Qalat, the capital of the southern Afghan province of Zabul.  The blast killed three American military service members, a female State Department Foreign Service Officer and a civilian working for the Department of Defense.

Another 10 people were also injured in the blast including four additional State Department employees, one of them injured critically.

An Afghan doctor was also killed in Saturday’s attack in Zabul province.

The US diplomat and other Americans were in a convoy of vehicles when the blast occurred, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.

Kerry praised the fallen State Department employee as “an exceptional young Foreign Service Officer” and said “our State Department family is grieving over the loss of one of our own.”

Kerry said he had met the unidentified Foreign Service Officer during his recent trip to Kabul “when she was selected to support me during my visit to Afghanistan.” He described her as “everything a Foreign Service Officer should be: smart, capable, eager to serve, and deeply committed to our country and the difference she was making for the Afghan people.  She tragically gave her young life working to give young Afghans the opportunity to have a better future.”

It remained unclear whether insurgents were targeting the American convoy or the governor of Zabul, who was nearby at the time of the attack.

Provincial governor Mohammad Ashraf Nasery was in the convoy, but was unharmed.

Another American civilian was killed in a separate insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. Forces Afghanistan said in a press release today.