Militants yesterday stormed an intelligence agency training facility in Kabul, officials said, triggering intense fighting with police in the latest Islamic State (IS) group attack to hit the Afghan capital.
“Around 10:10am, a group of armed attackers entered an under-construction building in [the] NDS training center in [the] Afshar area of Kabul,” Afghan Ministry of the Interior spokesman Najib Danish said, referring to the National Directorate of Security, the nation’s spy agency.
“The fighting is ongoing and we have also launched our operation,” the spokesman said.
Photo: AFP
Deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahim said the sound of large and small arms fire could be heard from the fighting.
“There are three attackers involved... The clearance operation is ongoing,” the spokesman said, adding that there were no immediate reports of any casualties.
Roads to the area were closed and dozens of police and intelligence officers were blocking access to the public. Agence France-Presse reporters, who were held more than a kilometer away from the scene, saw ambulances and reinforcements headed towards the site.
“I was going toward my school. It [the attack] happened suddenly... The police arrived in the area fast and blocked the roads, not allowing anyone to get to their homes,” said Naweed, a student.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack through its propaganda arm.
“Two IS attackers raid the Afghan intelligence center in Kabul,” the group’s Amaq outlet reported.
The Afghan capital has become one of the deadliest places in the war-torn country for civilians in recent months, as the resurgent Taliban and the Islamic State group both step up their attacks, targeting security installations and mosques.
Security in Kabul has been ramped up since May 31, when a massive truck bomb ripped through the city’s diplomatic quarter, killing about 150 and wounding about 400 people, mostly civilians.
No group has officially claimed responsibility for that attack, which the government has blamed on the Taliban-allied Haqqani Network.
Yesterday’s attack represents another blow to beleaguered Afghan forces. The Taliban have targeted military installations in recent months, including a spate of attacks in October that killed about 150 people.
Afghan forces, already beset by desertions and corruption, have seen casualties soar to what a US watchdog has described as “shockingly high” levels since NATO forces officially ended their combat mission in 2014.
Morale has been further eroded by long-running fears that the militants have insider help — everything from infiltrators in the ranks to corrupt Afghan forces selling equipment to the Taliban.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
RSS