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Taliban truck bombs kill 18 people in central Afghanistan Taliban truck bombs kill 33 people in central Afghanistan
(about 11 hours later)
Taliban insurgents have detonated two powerful truck bombs outside the office of Afghanistan's spy agency and a police compound in the central town of Ghazni on Thursday, killing 18 people and wounding about 150. Two truck bombs flattened parts of a police and intelligence complex in the heart of the Afghan city of Ghazni on Thursday, followed by a three-hour gun battle between Afghan forces and insurgents.
The attack, the biggest in recent weeks, comes days after the National Directorate of Security – the intelligence arm that is leading the fight against the insurgents – was targeted in the east. Initial reports of casualties varied considerably as Afghan authorities picked through the charred wreckage of three government compounds.
Ghazni's provincial governor, Musa Khan Akbarzada, said 19 insurgents were involved in the attack, which also targeted a quick reaction team in the police compound. The explosions, which shattered windows, were followed by gun battles with Afghan forces, he said. A statement from Afghanistan's interior ministry said 33 people had been killed, including 21 attackers, 10 police, and two civilians, while about 130 civilians and 17 police were injured.
The attack underlined growing insecurity in the country, which is beset by a political crisis over disputed election results as US-led Nato combat troops wind down their war against the Taliban. Baz Mohammed Hemat, the provincial public health director, said two intelligence service officers had also been killed, and suggested that some casualties listed as civilians may have been members of the security forces.
The group claimed responsibility for the attack through a recognised Twitter account. Local authorities said the attack started around 5.30am, when a small Mazda pickup truck exploded in the main entrance of the intelligence headquarters. Two minutes after, another bomb went off at a police compound housing the local crisis response unit, about 200 metres away. The bombs were followed by a gun battle that continued until 8am, said Shafiq Nang, the Ghazni governor's spokesman.
"After a three-hour gun battle, the security forces killed all 19 attackers," Assadullah Ensafi, deputy police chief of Ghazni, told AFP. "The truck bomb was very strong, it broke windows of houses and shops around the building." More people would have been hurt if the blasts had not occurred in the early hours, before the streets in that part of the city become congested, Nang added. Authorities said 90 of the injured civilians had been discharged from hospital.
The disputed election has emboldened the Taliban, with fresh offensives launched in the south and east, while several provinces close to the capital, Kabul, have suffered worsening unrest. Double truck bombings are extremely rare in Afghanistan. In the most spectacular attacks, insurgents usually follow a single vehicle bomb with an onslaught of commando-style attackers.
The two rival presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, both claim they won the fraud-tainted election in June. Even in Ghazni province, historically an insurgent stronghold, an attack so ambitious had not previously been attempted.
"This was the first double truck bomb in Ghazni, and I hope it will be the last one," said Assadullah Ensafi, the deputy provincial police chief.
The attack comes as donors gather for a Nato summit to discuss the coalition forces' role in the country after the final withdrawal of combat troops at the end of this year.
Nato has previously committed to training Afghanistan's security force, and it is hoped that donor countries will renew this support. Without it, the Afghan government does not have the capacity to run the 350,000-strong security force, at an estimated annual cost of £2.4bn to £3.7bn.
attack is the latest offensive by the ever-emboldened insurgency, which has sought to exploit the vacuum created by the contested presidential election, which has failed to produce a successor to Hamid Karzai.