Troops battle IS in Kabul for hours
KABUL: Militants rattled the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday in an hours-long attack that saw parts of the city showered with mortar fire, sparking intense clashes with security forces who used air strikes to quell the assault.
The attack, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, was near the presidential palace as President Ashraf Ghani was addressing the nation on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday, and came days after he offered the Taliban a conditional threemonth ceasefire.
The clashes follow what has already been a bloody month in Afghanistan with the Taliban ramping up assaults on security forces across the country and IS targeting Kabul, with hundreds killed according to estimates.
Afghan police said the attackers launched up to 20 mortar rounds targeting four districts in central Kabul, after earlier statements claimed the militants were firing rockets.
During the battle, an Afghan army helicopter swooped in low near the Eidgah Mosque in central Kabul and fired on the militant position, sending a plume of dust into the sky.
Shoppers who moments earlier had been buying livestock for the Eid feast sprinted for shelter as cars swerved in the road to flee the fighting. Ghani’s speech was being aired live on Facebook when the attack began.
The president paused as multiple blasts were heard in the background, some sounding nearby, before stating: “This nation is not going to bow to these rocket attacks.”
The attackers were in a building behind the mosque, which was partially destroyed in another attack several years earlier and is not believed to have been in use for Eid.
Live TV footage of the attack showed black smoke emanating from the area, while fire trucks and security vehicles rushed to the scene. An interior ministry spokesman, Bahar Mehr, said on Facebook that security forces were also defusing two explosives-packed vehicles during the fighting.