KABUL: A suicide attack outside Kabul’s main military academy killed at least six people on Thursday.

The suicide bomber struck as cadets were leaving Fahim Military Academy to travel home for the weekend.

Witnesses said the attacker was seen driving a vehicle laden with explosives.

The blast shattered windows in houses several block away.

“The explosion was very powerful,” Aref Shah, 34, a nearby resident, told Arab News by phone.

Police who cordoned off the site said that as well the six fatalities, at least six other people were wounded.

One police source put the toll at 15, but it was not immediately clear how many of the victims were cadets.

The sprawling academy lies close to a residential area on a hill in the western part of Kabul.

Both Taliban and Daesh affiliates have struck outside the academy in recent years. In one incident militants stormed the compound after climbing through one of its walls. A US general was also killed by a Taliban infiltrator inside the compound.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday’s explosion, which comes amid escalating attacks by the Taliban around the country in recent months, including Ramadan.

Some reports said that at least 20 government troops were killed in two different strikes by militants in the past 24 hours.

The surge of attacks comes as Afghan politicians, including former President Hamid Karzai, and Taliban delegates ended a second round of meetings on Thursday in Moscow. Due to the Taliban’s objection, no representative of President Ashraf Ghani’s government took part in the talks.

In a joint statement, the two sides said they discussed the need for “stable peace, a continuation of intra-Afghan dialogue, establishment of a truce, the withdrawal of foreign troops and cessation of foreign interference, as well as consolidation of an Islamic government.”