Taliban make day bloody for Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks across Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 74 people and wounding scores of others in the strikes on police compounds and government facilities with suicide bombers in the country’s south, east and west, officials said.

Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister, Murad Ali Murad, called the onslaught the “biggest terrorist attack this year.”

Murad said at a news conference in Kabul that attacks in Ghazni and Paktia provinces killed 71 people.

In southern Paktia province, 41 people — 21 policemen and 20 civilians — were killed when the Taliban targeted a police compound in the provincial capital of Gardez with two suicide car bombs. Among the wounded there were 48 policemen and 110 civilians.

The provincial police chief, Toryalai Abdyani, was killed in the Paktia attack, Murad said.

Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor in Ghazni, said the Taliban attack there lasted nine hours. By the time the attackers were repelled, there were 13 bodies of Taliban fighters on the ground, Noori added.

And in western Farah province, Police Chief Abdul Maruf Fulad said the Taliban attacked a government compound in Shibkho district, killing three policemen.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for all three attacks.