Kabul, August 10: One Afghan policeman and three militants were killed when a group of Taliban militants attacked government buildings with rockets and small-arms fire in central Afghanistan Monday, officials said.
Around six militants stormed a police checkpoint in Puli Alam, the capital of the central province of Logar, and then occupied a building from where they fired rockets at government buildings, Din Mohammad Darwish, spokesman for the provincial governor, told DPA.
‘They fired four rocket-propelled grenades at the governor’s office and two at police headquarters,’ he said.
‘One of the Taliban detonated his explosives close to the governor’s office and four or five others were hiding in a three-storey building close to governor’s office,’ he said, adding that no one was killed in rocket or suicide attacks.
A police officer and two other attackers were killed and one Afghan police and one army soldier were also wounded, Darwish said.
US helicopters were hovering over the town, trying to locate militants, while Afghan forces were advancing towards the occupied building to ‘arrest the militants alive’, he said.
With five hours from the start of the attack, Afghan police and army forces had still surrounded the building, Gholam Mustafa Mohseni, the provincial police chief said.
‘Our forces are waiting for the dark and then we will attack the building,’ a police official, who wanted not to be named, said. The security forces asked all residents in the vicinity of the building to vacate their residences before the final assault is conducted, he said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said six of their suicide bombers entered the provincial capital and attacked several government offices.
Mujahid, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, claimed that 20 Afghan police were killed in the attacks.
Logar, located some 60 km south of Kabul, has witnessed increased Taliban activities in the past two years. Some 1,500 US soldiers were deployed to the province earlier this year to prevent the militants’ advancement towards Kabul.
Taliban militants have recently launched several attacks in southern and eastern regions involving including suicide bombers, who simultaneously attacked multiple government buildings.
In the recent series of such attacks, eight Taliban fighters, equipped with guns and suicide vests, attacked Gardez and Nangarhar, two capital cities in the eastern region on July 21, killing five Afghan security personnel.
Meanwhile, nine Taliban militants were killed in a US-led coalition airstrike in Charchino district of southern Uruzgan province Monday, Musa Khan, spokesman for the provincial police chief said.
He said the airstrike was conducted after the militants attacked a convoy of the forces in the area. There were no casualties among the foreign forces, but three Afghan security forces, who were accompanying the coalition convoy, were wounded.
Thousands of Afghan and international forces are taking part in various operation in southern region to flash out the militants from the districts they are holding in order to provide a safer environment for the August 20 presidential election.
There are more than 100,000 international forces and around 200,000 Afghan security forces in the country to provide security for polling day, the second direct chance for Afghans to elect their president in country’s recent history.
—Agencies