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Dozens killed in Taliban attack on Afghan security agency Taliban strikes in heart of Kabul in deadly attack on elite agency
(about 4 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban attackers in Afghanistan staged an assault on a government security agency in the capital, Kabul, on Tuesday morning, killing at least 28 people and wounding more than 320. KABUL — The suicide blast tore open the gates of the compound. One worker inside saw a shower of glass shards and jagged pieces of the explosive-rigged truck.
The assault, which include at least two attackers and a car rigged with explosives, came a week after the Taliban announced their annual spring offensive, vowing large-scale attacks” in the 15th year of their war against the U.S.-backed Afghan government. Then seconds later Tuesday — as an ash-gray cloud rose over Kabul — Taliban gunmen opened fire on Afghanistan’s equivalent of the Secret Service. For three hours, a gun battle raged even as some agents were trapped under collapsed walls and ceilings.
In Tuesday’s assault, the Taliban appear to have targeted an agency similar to the U.S. Secret Service, providing protection for high-ranking government officials. Just a week earlier, the Taliban vowed to escalate attacks as the Afghan weather warms.
Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told a press conference that two militants were involved in the attack. One drove the small truck rigged with hundreds of kilograms of explosives. The second entered the compound in the aftermath of the explosion and opened fire before he was eventually killed. The militants now appeared to have followed through with the warnings in a shattering tally: at least 28 people killed, more than 325 injured and authorities left struggling over how Taliban attackers outwitted security patrols to carry out one of the most devastating attacks in Kabul in years.
Sediqqi said the car bomb caused massive damage to buildings and vehicles in the area and added that the death toll could rise. The target — the main training ground for an Afghan intelligence unit tasked with protecting senior officials — represented a direct strike against the Western-aided government as it takes the lead role in the fight against the Islamist militants.
“With no doubt there was a security vacuum and that needs to investigated, it is too early to comment on that right now,” he said. [Taliban vows to carry out “large-scale” attacks]
Ismail Kawasi, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry, said so far 327 wounded have been brought to area hospitals. The raid also was a message that the reach of Taliban fighters — and their ability to stage major coordinated attacks — appears undimmed despite rifts within the militant group’s ranks and pressures from the rival Islamic State as it seeks to expand its influence in Afghanistan.
“This was one of the most powerful explosions I have ever heard in my life,” said Obaidullah Tarakhail, a police commander who was present when the attack began. For leaders in Kabul, meanwhile, it may shatter for now any hope of reviving stalled peace talks with the Taliban, and puts President Ashraf Ghani under growing pressure from rivals over his efforts to reach out to the Islamist insurgent group.
Tarakhail added that he couldn’t see or hear anything for 20 minutes after the initial explosion. “All around was dark and covered with thick smoke and dust,” he said. The attack ended several weeks of relative calm in the Afghan capital. It began when a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives next to the security compound, said Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid. The blast was so powerful that it shattered windows and cracked building facades up to two miles away.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack. Taliban insurgents have stepped up their attacks recently since announcing the start of their spring offensive last week. After the explosion shredded part of the compound, at least one gunman entered the facility, touching off a three-hour gun battle less than a mile from the presidential palace and the Ministry of Defense in a densely populated part of the city.
President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement condemning the attack and saying it, “clearly shows the enemy’s defeat in face-to-face battle with Afghan security forces.” One gunman was killed, said Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Full details about the number of attackers and their tactics, however, remained unclear as the investigation unfolded.
The attack in Kabul comes four days after another attack by Taliban insurgents in northern Kunduz province, which was repelled by the Afghan security forces. “No doubt there was a security vacuum, and that needs to be investigated. It is too early to comment on that right now,” he told reporters.
Officials in Kunduz said that security has improved in the city and that the Taliban were defeated in other parts of the province, but operations were still underway to clear militant fighters from the rest of the province. The Taliban claimed responsibility, even as the casualties were still being counted.
The Taliban held Kunduz for three days last year before being driven out by a two-week counteroffensive aided by U.S.-airstrikes. It was their biggest foray into an urban area since 2001. [Gallery: The aftermath of the Kabul attack]
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Ghani quickly condemned the attack, saying in a statement that it was a sign that insurgents cannot defeat Afghan forces in a “face-to-face battle.”
The Health Ministry said at least 327 people were wounded, many of them civilian passersby. Mujahid, the police spokesman, said by phone that “the death toll is between 28 and 30.”
One worker at the intelligence agency, who goes by the single name Mehrabuddin, said he was resting on a bed when the truck bomb exploded.
“I rushed out of the room and was hit by debris, bricks, shrapnel and flying glass in the yard of the compound,” he said at Wazir Akbar Khan hospital, where he was treated for injuries to his head and stomach.
He said about 50 officers were studying in a room where the ceiling caved in from the explosion.
“I do not know what happened to them,” he added.
A truck of the International Committee of the Red Cross later brought medical assistance to the hospital. Volunteers rushed to donate blood.
The Taliban announced the start of its spring offensive last Tuesday. Fighting has since flared around the northern city of Kunduz, Afghanistan’s fifth-largest city, but Kabul had remained relatively quiet.
[The pull of the Taliban’s hard-line rule]
Kunduz fell briefly to the Taliban in September. That marked the biggest setback to Ghani’s government since forces led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ceased their combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
The coming months are seen as a critical test of the Taliban’s strength and unity.
In last week’s announcement, the Taliban vowed to carry out “large-scale” attacks as the weather warms. Such pronouncements have been made nearly every year since the Taliban was driven from power in Kabul by Afghan resistance forces and U.S. airstrikes in 2001.
While the Taliban now faces new challenges, it also has potential openings to expand recent gains.
The group has been wracked by internal splits after the public acknowledgment last year of the death of its longtime leader, Mohammad Omar. Some factions favored exploring peace efforts with the Afghan government. Others, though, called for bolstered offensives to regain territory and counter moves by the Islamic State to find new footholds in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition withdrew all but 13,500 troops last year, leaving the Afghan military at the forefront of the fight against the militants. The Taliban, in turn, has made steady gains in southern, eastern and northern Afghanistan.
Tuesday’s attack in Kabul was a stinging blow to Afghan forces amid efforts to enhance security in the capital after a string of high-profile Taliban incursions. In November 2014, militants carried out back-to-back suicide blasts, including one in a Kabul district that houses many embassies and foreign compounds.
In a statement Tuesday, the United Nations called on the Taliban to stop attacks in civilian areas.
“The use of high explosives in civilian populated areas, in circumstances almost certain to cause immense suffering to civilians, may amount to war crimes,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the secretary general’s deputy special representative for Afghanistan.
The U.S. military’s top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, portrayed the attack as a sign of the insurgents’ “weakness.”
“Today’s attack shows the insurgents are unable to meet Afghan forces on the battlefield and must resort to these terrorist attacks,” Nicholson said in a statement.
Daniela Deane in London and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
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