Taliban attack police — suicide bombing hits Kabul
KABUL — Taliban fighters overran a second district headquarters in as many days on Sunday, this one in western Ghor province, the provincial police chief said.
At least eight police officers were killed in separate battles against Taliban militants, who have stepped up their attacks in the north and west of the country laying siege to district headquarters, said Mohammad Mustafa Moseni.
Early Monday, a suicide car bombing in a western neighborhood of Kabul killed 12 people and injured an additional 10, said Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish. All the dead and wounded were civilians.
In Ghor’s Taywara area, Moseni said the Taliban made four assaults on district headquarters Sunday and that “we had no choice but to retreat.”
After capturing Taywara, Taliban fighters stalked the corridors of its hospital looking for wounded Afghan National Security personnel to kill, said provincial public health department director Ghulam Nabi Yaghana. He said he received reports that four or five patients were slain.
The area is remote, and telephone communication is sporadic, he said in a phone interview from the provincial capital of Ferozkoh. He said Taliban militants entered the hospital early Sunday. It’s believed all the dead are military or police personnel, he said.
The Taliban, in a statement to the media, announced the capture of Taywara district headquarters. The statement, however, said 46 Afghan government security forces were killed. The Associated Press could not independently verify either death toll.
In northern Faryab province’s Lawlash district, two police officers were killed late Saturday when Taliban fighters used the cover of darkness to attack the district headquarters, setting fire to police buildings, Abdul Karim Yourish, provincial police chief spokesman, said Sunday.
Government offices as well as the police headquarters were located inside the compound, he said.
In recent days, the Taliban have launched dozens of attacks in Afghanistan, temporarily closing a key highway between the capital Kabul and northern Afghanistan. The attacks reflect the Taliban’s efforts to apply pressure on government troops and police across the country and not just in their strongholds in the south and east of Afghanistan.