NATO says that six of its soldiers have been killed in a suicide attack near Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.
Brig. Gen William Shoffner, head of public affairs at NATO’s Resolute Support base in the Afghan capital Kabul, said on Monday that three foreign troops were also wounded in the attack.
He says the attack happened at around 1.30 p.m. local time in the vicinity of the base, which is the biggest U.S. military facility in Afghanistan.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack in an email to The Associated Press.
NATO could not confirm the nationality of the dead, according to policy.
Earlier, an Afghan official put the number of NATO personnel dead at three, with another two wounded. It is the deadliest attack on foreign troops since August.
Meanwhile, clashes intensified Monday as the Taliban pressed an offensive to capture a key district in Helmand, a day after an official warned that the entire southern province was on the brink of collapse.
Local residents reported crippling food shortages in Sangin district, heartland of the opium harvest and long seen as a hornet’s nest of insurgent activity, after the Taliban began storming government buildings on Sunday.
“The Taliban have captured the police headquarters, the governor’s office as well as the intelligence agency building in Sangin,” deputy Helmand governor Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar told AFP.