The car-bombing that killed at least 12 Americans in Kabul is the worst attack in months, and part of a trend toward showy, high-profile attacks as Taliban influence dwindles.

The attack, in which a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into a bus transporting coalition personnel between bases, was the deadliest against the NATO forces in Afghanistan since August, Bloomberg News reported. 

The explosion occurred as the convoy was passing the American University, sparking a fireball and littering the street with shrapnel, according to the Associated Press, which called it the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in more than two months.

Allen’s statement said there were two other attacks in Afghanistan yesterday. Three were killed and several wounded when a man wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his gun on Afghan and coalition forces in the southern part of the country.

The attack was a sign of how dangerous the continuing U.S. mission to train Afghan security forces remains. The Guardian said that's what the Americans and one Canadian casualty were doing there.

The vehicle had just begun a journey across the city from Camp Julien, the home of a counter-insurgency school that teaches Afghan troops how to fight guerrilla warfare, to Camp Phoenix, a base housing American trainers who work with the Afghan army and the police force.

Expect such high-profile attacks to be the norm as the U.S. continues to draw down its troop presence, The New York Times said.

Such high-profile attacks have been seen as a shift in Taliban strategy as they struggle against a surge in American troops that has loosened the militants’ grip on the Taliban heartland in the South and compromised their ability to stage more conventional attacks on NATO forces. American officials see the latest assaults as the Taliban’s attempt to shake confidence in the Afghan government, which is taking over security from NATO in Kabul and other areas of the country.

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Ted Mann