Two Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the Kabul traffic police headquarters early yesterday, before another group of militants stormed the compound, battling security forces for nine hours in an attack that left three policemen and all five attackers dead, authorities said.
The coordinated assault was the second brazen raid in the heart of the Afghan capital in less than a week, a sign that the insurgency is determined to keep carrying out such spectacular attacks even as the US and Afghan governments try to coax the Taliban into holding peace talks.
Nine hours after the insurgent attack began with two of the five attackers blowing themselves up, police commandos killed the last two insurgents holed up in the police headquarters, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said. He added that four traffic policemen and 10 civilians were also wounded in the fighting.
Kabul Chief of Police Mohammed Ayub Salangi said two Taliban suicide bombers died at the gate when their vests exploded, another blew himself up inside the building and two more were killed by security forces before they managed to detonate their explosive vests. He said a sedan packed with explosives blew up near the gate a short time later. Such secondary devices are rigged to timers and designed to kill as many first responders as possible.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, which he said was targeting a police training facility “run by foreign military forces.”
The traffic police headquarters is not heavily guarded, though it is located on a square leading to the parliament and is also next to the zoo. It is also adjacent to the Afghan border police headquarters and a police training facility — which may have been the more likely target. The traffic police facility, usually teeming with civilians seeking to get drivers licenses and registrations for vehicles, was nearly empty at the time of the attack.
Sediqi said Afghan forces carried out the operation against the militants without any assistance from NATO, adding that “this shows the ability of the Afghan forces, that they are leading the operation.”
A unit of NATO special forces that trains and mentors Afghan police was at the scene, but did not take part in the fighting.
Gul Rahman, who owns a shop near the traffic police compound, said he heard at least two blasts when the attack began just before dawn. A reporter at the scene said a number of big explosions were heard from inside and around the building, along with heavy gunfire.
It was the second insurgent attack inside Kabul in five days.
On Wednesday last week, six Taliban suicide bombers attacked the gates of the Afghan intelligence agency in downtown Kabul, killing one guard and wounding dozens. That operation bore several similarities to yesterday’s attack, including the use of a secondary car bomb placed outside the government compound. The attacks came as the Afghan government has been pushing to get the Taliban to the negotiating table and as Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the US negotiate for a quicker pullout of US forces.
The Philippines is working behind the scenes to enhance its defensive cooperation with Taiwan, the Washington Post said in a report published on Monday. “It would be hiding from the obvious to say that Taiwan’s security will not affect us,” Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro Jr told the paper in an interview on Thursday last week. Although there has been no formal change to the Philippines’ diplomatic stance on recognizing Taiwan, Manila is increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, the report said. The number of Chinese vessels in the seas around the Philippines, as well as Chinese
‘A SERIOUS THREAT’: Japan has expressed grave concern over the Strait’s security over the years, which demonstrated Tokyo’s firm support for peace in the area, an official said China’s military drills around Taiwan are “incompatible” with peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Takeshi Iwaya said during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi (王毅) on Thursday. “Peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is important for the international community, including Japan,” Iwaya told Wang during a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN-related Foreign Ministers’ Meetings in Kuala Lumpur. “China’s large-scale military drills around Taiwan are incompatible with this,” a statement released by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday cited Iwaya as saying. The Foreign Ministers’ Meetings are a series of diplomatic
URBAN COMBAT: FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-fired missiles from the US made a rare public appearance during early-morning drills simulating an invasion of the Taipei MRT The ongoing Han Kuang military exercises entered their sixth day yesterday, simulating repelling enemy landings in Penghu County, setting up fortifications in Tainan, laying mines in waters in Kaohsiung and conducting urban combat drills in Taipei. At 5am in Penghu — part of the exercise’s first combat zone — participating units responded to a simulated rapid enemy landing on beaches, combining infantry as well as armored personnel. First Combat Zone Commander Chen Chun-yuan (陳俊源) led the combined armed troops utilizing a variety of weapons systems. Wang Keng-sheng (王鏗勝), the commander in charge of the Penghu Defense Command’s mechanized battalion, said he would give
‘REALISTIC’ APPROACH: The ministry said all the exercises were scenario-based and unscripted to better prepare personnel for real threats and unexpected developments The army’s 21st Artillery Command conducted a short-range air defense drill in Taoyuan yesterday as part of the Han Kuang exercises, using the indigenous Sky Sword II (陸射劍二) missile system for the first time in the exercises. The armed forces have been conducting a series of live-fire and defense drills across multiple regions, simulating responses to a full-scale assault by Chinese forces, the Ministry of National Defense said. The Sky Sword II missile system was rapidly deployed and combat-ready within 15 minutes to defend Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in a simulated attack, the ministry said. A three-person crew completed setup and
RSS