At least 11 killed in Taliban attack on Afghan police headquarters
Updated 08:47, 19-Jul-2019
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At least 11 people were killed and more than 80 wounded when Taliban fighters detonated two car bombs at a gate outside a police headquarters in the Afghan city of Kandahar on Thursday.

Baheer Ahmadi, the Kandahar governor's spokesman, said in a statement that 11 people had been killed, including nine civilians and two police officers, while another 80 – including women and children – were wounded. 

He earlier had given a toll of 12 dead.

After the blasts, militant gunmen opened fire from nearby positions and members of the security forces were battling them, said Tadeen Khan, the southern city's chief of police.

The attackers targeted the police force's counter-narcotics wing, Khan said.

Interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said eight attackers were involved. Two blew themselves up, while the remaining six were "cornered in a building."

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said the afternoon attack in Afghanistan's second-largest city started with a car bomb, then saw gunmen storm the police compound. "A number of mujahideen equipped with heavy and small arms breached the headquarters and launched their operations inside," he said. 

Eyewitnesses said that following the first explosion, three back-to-back explosions were heard and the gunfight was still going on. Pictures on social media showed a huge plume of smoke rising over Kandahar, and Hayatullah Hayat, the provincial governor for Kandahar, said about six trucks carrying commercial goods had burned.  

After the attack, police cordoned off the area as passersby fled.

Hayat said Afghan security forces had launched a "clean-up operation" to see if any attackers were remaining. 

U.S. General Scott Miller (R), commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, walks with Afghan Acting Minister of Defense Asadullah Khalid (C) during a visit at the Afghan National Army checkpoint in the Nerkh district of Wardak Province, Afghanistan, June 6, 2019. /AFP Photo

U.S. General Scott Miller (R), commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, walks with Afghan Acting Minister of Defense Asadullah Khalid (C) during a visit at the Afghan National Army checkpoint in the Nerkh district of Wardak Province, Afghanistan, June 6, 2019. /AFP Photo

Ongoing peace talks 

Kandahar was the former seat of the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until they were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001.

The assault comes amid a series of peace talks between Washington and the Taliban since late last year that both sides say are making progress, but which so far have yielded no reduction in violence in the grueling Afghan conflict. 

Read More:

18 years and counting: Afghanistan peace talks

At least 20 Afghan forces members were killed in a Taliban ambush in Abkamari district in western Badghis province on Wednesday.

The Taliban also killed an Afghan commander on Wednesday in central Afghanistan. Mateen Mujtaba, who headed an army division in Ghazni province, was conducting a security check in Qarabagh district when an Afghan soldier started shooting.

Officials said the soldier was an infiltrator of the hardline Islamist group.

The Taliban claimed the attack, saying U.S. soldiers had also been killed.

(With input from Reuters, AFP)

(Cover: An Afghan police officer keeps watch near the site of a suicide car bomb blast in Kandahar, Afghanistan, July 18, 2019. /Reuters Photo)