Taliban storm building, killing 44

Failed bid to free prisoners at courthouse

KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents wearing Afghan army uniforms launched a suicide attack and stormed a courthouse Wednesday in a failed bid to free Taliban inmates, killing at least 44 people, half of them shot in the basement. Nine attackers were killed.

The attack was one of the deadliest of the long war. It began about 8:30 a.m. when nine men wearing suicide vests drove into the capital of Farah province in western Afghanistan, evading checkpoints by using army vehicles, according to the provincial police chief. The standoff ended some eight hours later when the last gunman was killed.

Insurgents have stepped up assaults targeting the Farah provincial government in recent months as they vie for control of an area bordering Iran to the west and Helmand province to the east. Farah has become increasingly volatile as the site of a growing drug trade after military offensives in neighboring areas.

“The Taliban seem to be exploiting the opium harvest and the unpopular eradication efforts by the government to further establish their presence,” Fabrizio Foschini, of the independent research group Afghan Analysts Network, said in a recent blog.

The attack began when two assailants blew themselves up inside one of the vehicles while the others jumped out and ran toward the courthouse and prosecutor’s office, provincial police chief Agha Noor Kemtoz said.

Guards opened fire, killing one of the attackers, as the others engaged in a fierce gunbattle that left civil servants and government officials holed up in their offices.

Other civilians fled to the basement of the courthouse, where gunmen found them and killed 21 people, officials said.