Afghan Taliban attack aid group, 2 guards killed
In the latest militant strike on the Afghan capital, Taliban gunmen backed by a suicide car bomber attacked an international aid group’s compound on Friday, killing two guards and setting off an hours-long street battle with police in the heart of Kabul .
The attack, the second in the city in just over a week, also left four International Organization for Migration workers wounded including an Italian woman badly burned by a grenade. Thirteen police were wounded while all six attackers died in the assault, authorities said.
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack on a guest house used by the IOM in an upscale neighborhood of Kabul, a relatively uncommon operation by the group targeting an international aid group.
At the chaotic scene of the siege, dozens of Afghan police took cover behind blast walls and rushed around through a thick cloud of smoke made by the bomb. At least one wounded officer was seen being helped away by his comrades.
The insurgents have unleashed a wave of bombings and assassinations around the country, testing Afghan security forces’ ability to respond with reduced help from international forces, who have begun a withdrawal that will see most foreign troops gone by the end of 2014.
A Nepalese guard and an Afghan police officer providing security to the compound died in the assault as well as all of the attackers, said Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi.
The attackers stormed into the building with grenade launchers after blasting open the compound’s gate with the car bomb, Salangi said. He said police were able to evacuate the guest house with none of the residents killed.
From when the initial blast shook much of the city in the late afternoon until well past nightfall, fighting was still going on in the upscale Shahr-i-Now neighborhood, home to several international groups’ fortified compounds as well as the headquarters of the Afghan Public Protection Force and a hospital run by the National Directorate for Security.
Security forces were able to enter the building in late evening and by 10:30 p.m. the siege was over, according to Sediq Sediqi , spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Interior.
“Fortunately, it is finished. The last attacker has been killed by the police,” Sediqi said. Local television reporters demanded to know how a car bomber and five attackers could enter the capital, but Sediqi portrayed the battle as a victory for security forces.
“We were successful because we prevented civilian casualties,” he said, adding that 13 police officers were wounded in the fighting.
“Wild terrorists attacked … the IOM,” police official Zemarai Bashari said at the scene. “Our forces are fighting the enemy with courage and honesty.”
IOM spokesman Chris Lom said in Geneva that an Italian woman working for the group was seriously burned by a grenade thrown into the compound by the attackers.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said insurgent fighters killed several people in the compound, which he said was targeted because it is “the place of residence of trainers for the CIA.” He said late in the afternoon that he was in contact with the attackers and that their “morale is high” despite the fierce fighting.
Initial reports identified the target as a United Nations compound. However, the U.N. special representative to Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, said in a statement that all U.N. staff in Kabul were accounted for.
The IOM is an inter-governmental organization based in Geneva that helps resettle people worldwide. It operates in Afghanistan in a mission coordinated by the U.N. but is not an agency of the world body.
