Two suicide bombers dressed as policemen killed 13 police in a brazen attack on a police training center on Saturday, Afghan officials said, the second clash in Afghanistan’s volatile east within hours.
Overnight, Afghan and NATO-led forces killed more than 15 insurgents after they came under fire when they approached a compound in Nangarhar Province near the border with Pakistan.
Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.
PHOTO: EPA
RECORD-HIGH CASUALTIES
Military and civilian casualties are at record highs despite the presence of about 150,000 foreign troops.
Attacks flared in the lead-up to a summit of NATO leaders in Portugal, where US and NATO officials agreed a week ago to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s timeline for foreign combat operations to finish by the end of 2014.
In the Paktika provincial capital of Sharan, Taliban insurgents dressed in police uniforms attacked the police chief’s headquarters and a training center, a local official said.
Two of the attackers detonated explosives-packed vests they were wearing once they got inside the compound, killing four police. Several others including the police chief were wounded, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
RESPONSIBILITY
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the Islamist group. He said by telephone from an undisclosed location that the attackers had trained as police at the center.
Afghan and US and NATO commanders have set a goal of ramping up Afghanistan’s army and police to about 306,000 by October next year as part of the security transition plan from foreign to Afghan forces. There are currently about 258,000 Afghan soldiers and police.
One concern about such a rapid increase in Afghan forces has been whether officials will be able to vet recruits properly to prevent infiltration by insurgents. Attacks using uniforms bought or stolen by insurgents are relatively common.
The readiness of Afghan forces will play a major part in US President Barack Obama’s deliberations when he begins a review of his Afghanistan war strategy next month. Some US and NATO officials have warned that slow -progress among Afghan forces might mean the 2014 timeline slips into 2015.
BORDER CLASH
In Nangarhar’s Sherzad District, close to the Pakistan border, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said a patrol had come under small-arms and machine gun fire as it approached a compound in search of a Taliban leader.
It said “more than 15 armed insurgents” were killed in the subsequent engagement overnight.
On Nov. 13, Taliban fighters including at least two suicide bombers attacked a foreign military base in Jalalabad, which is Nangarhar’s provincial capital and the main city in Afghanistan’s east.
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