KABUL — A suicide car bomber tore through the Afghan capital Saturday, hours after President Hamid Karzai announced U.S. and Afghan negotiators had agreed on a draft deal allowing U.S. troops to remain in the country beyond a 2014 deadline.
The blast, which killed six people near where thousands of tribal leaders will discuss the deal next week, was a bloody reminder of the insecurity plaguing the country after 12 years of war.
The suicide bomber attacked security forces protecting the Loya Jirga site, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi. He said the blast killed six people and wounded 22. Among the dead were two security personnel, he said.
Sediqqi said Afghan security forces had prior knowledge of the suicide bombing but were unable to stop the attack. He did not elaborate.
No group immediately claimed the attack, though blame is likely to fall on the Taliban, which has opposed the presence of any foreign soldiers in Afghanistan.
Karzai called for the Loya Jirga, a national consultative assembly of tribal elders, which will begin meeting Thursday to discuss the proposal. About 3,000 elders and influential figures will debate the Bilateral Security Agreement.
Without its approval, Afghanistan likely will refuse to sign the agreement. If the Loya Jirga does approve it, the agreement still requires final approval from parliament, Karzai said.
U.S. officials refused to comment on the draft, describing the effort as an ongoing diplomatic process. Karzai provided few details regarding how and when the draft was finalized but said there still remain “differences” between Washington and Kabul on the deal.
Negotiations have been protracted and often acrimonious. In the end, it took a surprise visit to Afghanistan in October by Secretary of State John Kerry to produce the outlines of a deal.
Earlier, two senior U.S. officials said that Afghanistan had sought specific security guarantees, particularly against cross-border incursions by insurgents from neighboring Pakistan.
The U.S. is cautious about any commitments that could lead to a conflict with Pakistan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal was still being negotiated.
Karzai described a laborious negotiation process that sometimes came down to fine details of phrasing.
He did not say what the draft said regarding U.S. service members’ immunity from prosecution in an Afghan court. They could still face prosecution in a U.S. court.
