Gunmen attack Interior Ministry; Taliban commanders reported killed
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — Gunmen wearing military uniforms and suicide vests stormed the heavily fortified Afghan Interior Ministry compound Wednesday, killing at least one police officer during a battle that lasted more than two hours, officials said.
The ministry’s spokesman, Najib Danesh, said eight suicide bombers were involved in the attack, which began when a car bomb detonated outside the minis- try’s compound.
As in such attacks in the past, the blast paved the way for other attackers to get inside the vast compound, which serves as the headquarters of Afghanistan’s national police forces.
Separately, the U.S. military said Wednesday that more than 50 senior Taliban commanders were killed when an artillery rocket system struck a meeting in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on May 24.
The gathering of commanders from a number of Afghan provinces was reportedly a planning session related to the insurgents’ annual spring offensive, which was launched last month.
The Taliban denied the U.S. military’s account, calling it “propaganda” and claiming that the strike hit two civilian houses in Musa Qala, resulting in the deaths of five civilians.
In Kabul, the gunmen who attacked the Interior Ministry were either shot dead by police or died when they detonated their explosives, Danesh said.
In addition to the one police officer killed, he said, five others were wounded. However, a police officer who declined to be identified said the toll was higher than reported.
Witnesses said the assailants arrived in an SUV, a type of vehicle mostly used by Afghan authorities and U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the strike, which came three weeks after a group of Taliban fighters and sympathizers of the Islamic State sepa- rately staged two such complex attacks on two police stations in Kabul.
Wednesday’s attack
Witnesses said the assailants arrived in an SUV, a type of vehicle mostly used by Afghan authorities and U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan.
came hours after a team of Taliban suicide bombers stormed a police station in Logar province south of Kabul, where three policemen were killed.
Viole n ce has sharply increased in recent weeks since the Taliban, which leads the insurgency against Afghan government and U.S.led troops, announced its annual spring offensive. The Taliban has stepped up the fighting despite a surge of U.S. military activity as part of Washington’s new war strategy set in motion last summer.