Insurgents kill more than 20 in Afghanistan
Series of attacks by militants targeted security forces.
KABUL — More than 20 security forces were killed in a series of attacks by Taliban militants Saturday in various parts of Afghanistan, including Kabul, officials reported in a sign of insurgents’ mobility despite a surge of offensives by U.S. and Afghan troops in recent months.
In Kabul, a suicide bomber on foot detonated explosives attached to his body outside an intelligence agency office, near the headquarters of NATO-led troops, Afghan officials said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said three Afghans were killed and six wounded, but he did not identify the victims.
The death toll in Kabul could have been higher, but an official for the intelligence agency threw his arms around the bomber before he could reach an area further up from the site of the blast, where there was a larger group of officials and civilians, the Interior Ministry’s chief spokesman told The Washington Post.
“He did an amazing job, sacrificed his life to save others by embracing the bomber before he could detonate the explosives,” Najib Danesh said, adding that another intelligence official was also among those killed.
The Kabul attack followed two suicide car bomb attacks targeting Afghan security forces Saturday in southern Helmand province, he said. At least four policemen were killed in the two attacks.
The bloodiest incident took place in Farah province where 18 troops were massacred overnight in their camps, said Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanesh.
The latest attacks come after a spate of high-profile strikes by the Taliban and the Islamic State in January, when more than 150 people, many of them civilians, were killed in different parts of Kabul.
U.S.-led and Afghan forces in recent months have ratcheted up ground and aerial offensives against the militants as part of Washington’s new strategy for the war in Afghanistan.