At least 14 people were killed and 32 wounded in Taliban attacks in Kabul yesterday, officials said. At least four of the dead and some of the wounded were Indian nationals, said Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, the head of Kabul police’s crime investigation department.
The attacks came as NATO-led foreign troops and Afghan forces press ahead with an offensive against the Taliban in their stronghold in southern Helmand Province.
Police said a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance to Kabul’s biggest shopping center soon after daybreak. At least two blasts and gunfire were reported in the area, which includes a hotel, guest house and some government buildings.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attacks on behalf of the Islamist militants.
“Our mujahidi [holy warrior] fighters managed to attack in the heart of Kabul city once again,” Mujahid said.
He said at least five Taliban fighters launched the attack. Two suicide bombers detonated explosives-packed vests near the hotel and the City Center shopping mall. Three fighters were in the basement of the shopping center, he said.
Witnesses later said the fighting died down and the situation appeared to be under control.
A cameraman said he saw two bodies being carried from the guest house, which is used largely by Indians.
India is one of the biggest donors in Afghanistan and is a supporter of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Indian Embassy in Kabul has been attacked twice since 2008.
After the first embassy bombing in July 2008, New Delhi said Pakistan’s military spy agency, the ISI, was behind most attacks on Indians in Afghanistan as a way of undermining Indian influence.
Pakistan has long regarded Afghanistan as a fall-back position in the event of war with India and fears being squeezed between India on its eastern border and a hostile Afghanistan, backed by India, on a western boundary Kabul does not recognize.
In Kabul, an Indian who identified himself as Kashif said he survived yesterday’s attack in the guest house by locking himself inside his room.
“I was inside my room when I heard a loud explosion and then I could not see if people were killed or wounded because I locked my door,” Kashif said.
The attack shattered the early morning calm at the start of the Afghan weekend. Thick smoke rose above the neighborhood.
“I heard a big blast,” witness Quaree Sameh said. “The glass shattered. The attackers were throwing grenades and shooting.”
Broken glass littered the street on a wet, cold morning as Afghan security forces wearing bullet-proof vests rushed to secure the area, some taking up positions in doorways and others crouching behind concrete barriers.
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