The Associated Press reported Sunday that Taliban militants killed six Americans on Saturday, including 25-year-old female diplomat from the Chicago area named Anne Smedinghoff.
Three members of the military, two U.S. civilians and an Afghan doctor were also killed after being hit by an explosion while traveling to donate books to a school in the south.
In a statement, Secretary of State John Kerry – in Turkey for meetings with the country's leaders -- paid tribute to Smedinghoff. He called the attack "despicable.”
Kerry said Smedinghoff had served as his control officer when he visited Afghanistan two weeks ago.
“Living abroad with Uncle Sam,” reads the header on her Twitter account.
The New York Times reported that four other State Department employees were wounded -- one critically -- and three Afghans were also killed.
Muhammad Jan Rasoolyar, the deputy governor, said the doctor that was killed was accompanying Gov. Mohammad Ashraf Nasery and two of his bodyguards “on a trip to inaugurate a new school in Qalat, the provincial capital, where they were to deliver donated books.”
Officials said the suicide car bomber struck around 11 a.m., just as the governor’s vehicle passed the coalition convoy carrying Smedinghoff, the three military members and the two U.S. civilians to the same event.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi -- Taliban spokesman -- claimed responsibility for the attack in Zabul, saying the bomber was seeking to target either a coalition convoy or the governor.
"We were waiting for one of them," Ahmadi told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "It was our good luck that both appeared at the same time.”
A U.S. military official said another American civilian was killed in a separate insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan.
The BBC reported Sunday that Up to 12 civilians - 10 children and two women - are reported to have been killed in a Nato air strike in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday.
Nato confirmed that "fire support" was used in Shigal after that attack.
The air support was called in by coalition forces - not Afghans - and was used to engage insurgent forces in areas away from structures, according to our reporting.
President Karzai ordered a complete ban on Afghan security forces calling in air strikes in residential areas in February.
In a statement, the Nato-led International Security Assistant Force (Isaf) said they were also “aware” of the attack that lead to the deaths of Smedinghoff, five other Americans and Gov. Nasery’s physician.
No Isaf personnel were involved on the ground, but Isaf provided fire support from the air, killing several insurgents. We are also aware of reports of several civilians injured from the engagement, but no reports of civilian deaths. Isaf takes all reports of civilian casualties seriously, and we are currently assessing the incident.
The last American diplomat to be killed was Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
Stevens and three other Americans were murdered when U.S. facility in Benghazi was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012. An Islamic militant group -- Ansar Al-Sharia -- claimed credit for the attack through Twitter and Facebook.
President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration officials blamed the attack on an anti-Islam video.
However, several released emails confirmed that the State Department knew within hours that Ansar Al-Sharia had been behind the attack. In the emails, Stevens expressed concern over threats of a pending attack and pleaded for additional security.
During her remarks, delivered at a joint press conference after her meeting with Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota on Oct. 24, Clinton dismissed the information contained in the emails.
Now finally on Benghazi, look, I’ve said it and I’ll say it one more time. No one wants to find out what happened more than I do. We are holding ourselves accountable to the American people, because not only they, but our brave diplomats and development experts serving in dangerous places around the world, deserve no less.
You know, posting something on Facebook is not, in and of itself, evidence, and I think it just underscores how fluid the reporting was at the time and continued for some time to be.
“We will find out what happened,” she vowed. “We will take whatever measures are necessary to fix anything that needs to be fixed, and we will bring those to justice who committed these murders. And I think that is what, that is what we have said, that is what we are doing. I am very confident that we will achieve those goals.
“Make no mistake,” Obama said in his statement on the attack in the Rose Garden Sept. 12, with Clinton by his side. “we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.”
Make no mistake, justice will be done.
“A free and stable Libya is still in America’s interest and security,” Clinton said during her remarks, delivered earlier at the State Department, “and we will not turn our back on that, nor will we rest until those responsible for these attacks are found and brought to justice. We are working closely with the Libyan authorities to move swiftly and surely. We are also working with partners around the world to safeguard other American embassies, consulates, and citizens.
There is no higher priority than protecting our men and women wherever they serve.
"Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans?” Clinton asked during her six hours of testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) on Jan. 23. “What difference, at this point, does it make?"
"It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again."
She reminded the members of the SFRC that she had stood next to the president “the very next morning” the attack in the Rose Garden of the White House and “vowed to bring them to justice.”
While seven months have passed since the attack in Benghazi, no one has been brought “to justice.”
“America does not and will not cower before terrorism,” The Associated Press quoted Kerry saying after Saturday’s attack in Afghanistan, and while he added that “we are going to forge on, we're going to step up,” he said nothing of bringing those responsible for the deaths of more Americans “to justice.”
On Saturday afternoon -- the day Smedinghoff and five other Americans were killed – ABC News reported that Obama was golfing – for “the second weekend in a row” --at a course at Joint Base Andrews with White House aides Marvin Nicholson, Joe Paulsen, and Michael Brush.
Although Obama’s White House schedule for Sunday appears empty, he has yet to issue a statement about the deaths.
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