A suicide bomber has struck outside ISAF headquarters in Kabul, killing at least six peo­ple, Nato and local officials said.

The attack on Friday, which officials say was carried out by a child, also wounded at least five others on a national public holiday.
The Taliban took responsibility for the attack, saying they had dispatched a bomber to target the Kabul offices of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
“One of our mujahideen targeted an impor­tant intelligence office used for recruit­ing Americans and Afghans for spying,” Tal­iban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
The bomber blew himself up near the entrance of Camp Eggers, a Nato spokes­woman said, referring to a sprawling base that is home to 2 500 coalition trainers.

Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith, reporting from Kabul, said that police reports blame a lone suicide bomber on an explosives-laden motorcycle.
“We are being told that the bomber was perhaps a child, aged 10 to 12 years old,” our correspondent said.
“This attack was near the entrance of the compound — a gate where people go in and out of the headquarters. I have been through this entrance before, and you have to go through a number of barriers to get in.”

The Taliban, however, claimed that the attacker was 28 years old, and not a child as claimed by officials.
“It was a suicide attack that killed six peo­ple and wounded five others,” Sediq Sediqqi, the interior ministry’s spokesperson, told AFP.
Hashmat Stanikzai, a police spokesperson, said the dead and wounded were all street sell­ers aged between 12 and 17.

Street children routinely gather outside Nato headquarters to peddle small trinkets and sweets, looking out for soldiers leaving or getting into the base.
“I was here when the blast occurred. I saw some wounded children on the ground. The wounded were transferred to an emergency hospital for treatment and I heard that three of the injured children have died,” said Ahmad Sameer, a witness.

Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the US-led international military alliance, said all coalition compounds in Kabul were currently secure. He said he was not aware of any casu­alties among members of the coalition.

“These are all animals, the Taliban who kill our people everyday. They told me my brother was brought to this hospital. I’m try­ing to get in to see him,” said Hamid, a 23-year-old man searching for his 15-year-old brother who he was told was wounded in the attack.
The explosion comes a day after the US designated the Haqqani network as a terrorist organisation. The group is affiliated to the Taliban and opposes the Afghan government, operating on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Sediqqi speculated on his Twitter feed that the attack, just before noon, may have been carried out by the Haqqanis.
The blast reverberated through Kabul’s diplomatic quarter, which is home to many Western embassies, shortly after First Vice-President Mohammad Qasim Fahim finished an address to scores of dignitaries at an event mourning the death of Ahmad Shah Mas­soud, an iconic anti-Taliban commander who was killed two days before the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

It also comes just days after Afghan author­ities said that they cracked down on hun­dreds of soldiers believed to have links to the Tal­iban in a bid to crush the rise of alleged insider attacks.

The announcement on Wednesday came after Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato chief, expressed his concerns to President Hamid Karzai over the recent increase in the so-called green-on-blue attacks.
At least 45 Nato-led soldiers have been killed by Afghan security personnel this year — an increase from 35 killings from last year.

Friday’s attack was the deadliest in the fortified capital since Taliban fighters raided a nearby lakeside hotel on June 22, killing at least 18 people. — Al Jazeera.