Three ISAF Service Members Killed in Kabul Blast

An armored vehicle hit by a bomb attack is lifted by a U.S. truck in Kabul, December 27, 2013. (REUTERS/OMAR SOBHANI)

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) reported that at least three of its members were killed in a suicide attack on a foreign convoy in an eastern district of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Friday. A Taliban spokesman said the group was responsible for the fatal strike, according to the Associated Press. 

CNN reports that according to ISAF, an improvised explosive device was detonated in a vehicle in a suicide strike. On Wednesday, the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan's capital city was struck by "indirect fire." No injuries were reported in the dual attacks, which the Taliban also claimed responsibility for. 

The attack occurred about one half mile away from NATO's Camp Phoenix base. 

The U.S. and Afghanistan have been struggling to agree on a plan to withdraw NATO-led troops from the Middle Eastern nation, where fear of a Taliban takeover looms. This week, U.S. officials warned that if Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai doesn't sign a security pact allowing roughly 8,000 U.S. soldiers to remain in his country past 2014, not only could the Taliban regain power, but branches of al Qaeda could establish havens in the region, and the country could lose funding from Washington. Currently, around 43,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed in Afghanistan. 

Karzai is reluctant to sign the security pact, in part because of the U.S. drone policy that has killed Afghan civilians. He has, however, seen resistance from other Afghan leaders in favor of signing the pact. 

The Taliban warned early this year (as it has previously) that it will step up attacks on local security forces ahead of NATO's withdrawal, and has claimed responsibility for several attacks since that time. Most of those coalition forces killed in Afghanistan in the last two years were victims of "green-on-blue" attacks, where soldiers inside the Afghan army have turned on their foreign counterparts.