30 killed in Taliban attack
Another 320 hurt by truck bomb
At least 30 people were killed and hundreds wounded when a Taliban truck bomb tore through central Kabul and a fierce firefight broke out yesterday, a week after the insurgents launched their annual spring offensive.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a densely crowded neighbourhood, which sent clouds of acrid smoke billowing into the sky and rattled windows several kilometres away.
The brazen assault in a densely packed neighbourhood marks the first major Taliban attack in the Afghan capital since the insurgents announced the start of this year’s fighting season.
“One of the suicide attackers blew up an explosives-laden truck in a public parking lot next to a government building,” Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told reporters.
“The second attacker engaged security forces in a gunbattle before being gunned down.”
Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said 30 people, including women and children, were killed in the attack and warned that the toll could rise further.
He added that more than 320 were wounded, with many of them battling for their lives in hospital.
The Afghan interior ministry denounced the attack as a “war crime”, pledging to track down the perpetrators.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed their fighters had managed to enter the offices of the National Directorate of Security, the main spy agency.
Afghan officials dismissed those claims, saying that the target of the attack was a government office responsible for providing security to government VIPs.
Pitched gun battles were ongoing near the building, which was cordoned off by security officials as ambulances were seen rushing to the scene.
The Taliban are generally known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
“(We) condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in Puli Mahmood Khan neighbourhood of Kabul, as a result of which many of our countrymen were martyred and wounded,” President Ashraf Ghani said.
“Such cowardly terrorist attacks will not weaken the will and determination of Afghan security forces to fight against terrorism.”
The Taliban on Tuesday last week announced the start of their “spring offensive” even as the government in Kabul seeks to bring them back to the negotiating table to end the drawn-out conflict.
The Taliban warned they would “employ large-scale attacks on enemy positions across the country” during the offensive dubbed Operation Omari in honour of the movement’s late founder Mullah Omar, whose death was announced last year.
The insurgents began the fighting season last week by targeting the northern city of Kunduz, which they briefly captured last year in a stunning setback for Afghan forces.
But officials said Afghan security forces drove Taliban fighters back from the city on Friday.
The Taliban’s resurgence has raised serious questions about Afghan forces’ capacity to hold their own.
An estimated 5 500 troops were killed last year. — AFP