Taleban kill 14 police in attempt to take over key Afghan capital
Attackers hid in homes before slipping into the streets as night fell
The Taleban tried to overrun a provincial capital in Afghanistan yesterday, hiding inside homes before slipping into city streets in the night to attack security forces and killing at least 14 policemen before being pushed back, officials said.
The overnight attack in the south-eastern city of Ghazni, the capital of a province with the same name, also wounded at least 20 members of the security forces, said Baz Mohammad Hemat, the administrator of the Ghazni city hospital.
Thecitywasinlockdownand fighting continued throughout yesterday, with sporadic bursts of gunfire from Taleban fighters who had hidden in elevated positions inside Ghazni from which they were shooting, some residents said.
An Afghan military helicopter crash-landed in the city during the daytime fighting, and four Afghan soldiers on board were injured, one critically, said Mohammad Radmanish, spokesman for the Ministry of Defence.
The Taleban claimed that they had downed the “enemy” helicopter in Ghazni but Mr Radmanish said it was not immediately clear if the helicopter had been hit or crashlanded due to other reasons.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a Taleban attack on Thursday night in western Herat province left six policemen dead in the district of Obe, said the governor’s spokesman there, Gelani Farhad.
The brazen assaults by the Taleban, who have been gaining more ground in their annual spring offensive and who have shrugged off the government’s latest offers of a ceasefire and negotiations, underscore the difficulties Afghan forces face in battling the relentless insurgency on their own in efforts to end the nearly 17-year war.
The Ghazni attack began around 2 am with intense gun battles raging and fires burning in several shops in the city’s residential areas, provined cial police chief Farid Ahmad Mashal said.
After repulsing the first assault, police conducted house-to-house searches for remaining Taleban fighters. Also, an investigation was underway to determine how the insurgents managed to infiltrate so deep into the city, barely 75 miles south of the Afghan capital of Kabul.
Mr Hemat, said two wound- civilians were brought to the hospital. He was worried more wounded could be out there as the city was shut down and ambulances were not being sent out.
Mr Mashal said there were more than 100 other casualties but he could not give a breakdown of the dead and wounded. Most of the casualties were Taleban, he said.
Several bodies of dead Taleban fighters remained on the streets of Ghazni, the police chief said. In one location, bodies of 39 Taleban fighters were recovered from under a bridge on the southern edge of the city. Airstrikes called in to quash the offensive also killed dozens of Taleban, Mr Mashal said.
Lt-col Martin O’donnell, a spokesman for United States forces in Afghanistan, said American forces and US attack helicopters had assisted Afghan troops in pushing back the Taleban during the night