71 dead in attacks on Afghanistan forces

GARDEZ: Two separate suicide and gun attacks on government forces in Afghanistan left 71 dead and 170 wounded on Tuesday.

The Taliban claimed the more deadly of the two assaults, a coordinated attack on police in the southeast city of Gardez in Paktia province. That assault killed 41 people and injured 158, according to the interior ministry.

A separate ambush blamed on the Taliban in the neighbouring province of Ghazni killed 25 security officials and five civilians, the ministry said.

The first attack, claimed by the Taliban in a tweet, began when two suicide bombers driving an explosives-laden truck and a Humvee blew them up near the training centre, which is close to the Paktia police headquarters.

The blasts flattened a building and enabled gunmen to force their way inside the compound, according to officials and the interior ministry.

“Most of the victims are civilians who had come to the police headquarters to get their passports and national IDS,” the Paktia governor’s office said.

The second attack, in Ghazni some 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of Gardez, followed a similar pattern involving insurgents detonating an explosives-laden Humvee near a police headquarters then storming the building, Haref Noori, the Ghazni governor’s spokesman, told AFP.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attacks and praised the “bravery and sacrifice” of security forces.

They came a day after talks between Afghanistan, Pakistan, the US and China were held in Oman with the aim of ending the Taliban’s 16-year insurgency. They also came hours after a US drone strike in Pakistan’s Kurram tribal district, part of which borders Paktia, killed at least 26 Haqqani militants.