11 killed in suicide attack on Afghan police HQ
A suicide bomber in a police uniform detonated explosives he was carrying inside a police headquarters in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing 11 people and wounding 29 others, the Interior Ministry said.
The bombing followed a surge in violence in Afghanistan over the weekend that led to the deaths of nine foreign troops, including four Americans.
The bomber Monday set off his explosives after slipping inside the main police building in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, while the police were exercising, said Asadullah Sherzad, the provincial police chief.
The attack killed nine police and two civilians and wounded 29 others, mostly police, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The attack is most likely the work of Taliban militants, who regularly use suicide bombers in their attacks against Afghan and foreign forces in the country.
The lightly armed police force has suffered greatly in Taliban attacks, with more than 800 officers killed in 2008 alone.
Southern Afghanistan is the centre of the Taliban insurgency. The US is sending thousands of new troops to the south this year to try to reverse Taliban gains. The Islamic militants have made a violent comeback the last three years following an apparent initial defeat after the 2001 US invasion.
Nine international soldiers and three Afghan civilians were killed in a bloody weekend of attacks in Afghanistan linked to a Taliban-led insurgency, officials said.
Attacks in Helmand over the weekend killed three British troops, while a roadside bomb in the east Sunday killed four US troops. A French soldier was also killed in a clash on Saturday, making the weekend one of the deadliest two-day periods for international troops in weeks.
Three other ISAF soldiers died in Afghanistan on Saturday. One was French, another British and the nationality of the third has not been released.
The spike in violence is an early indication that roadside bombs and other ambushes are likely to surge as some 17,000 US forces arrive in Afghanistan this year to bolster the record 38,000 Americans already in the country.
In other violence Monday, a suicide attacker in the western province of Farah shot and killed a policeman outside a government building, then entered the building and detonated a suicide bomb, wounding two civilians, said Rauf Ahmadi, a police spokesman in western Afghanistan.
The Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001, have carried out a wave of similar attacks across the besieged country with other radical factions and criminals also behind a tide of violence.
The US military said meanwhile that soldiers killed five militants in an operation early Sunday about 60 kilometres (40 miles) west of Kandahar city.
Three others were detained, it said in a statement.
Isaf has swollen to reach nearly 62,000 soldiers from 42 countries, according to its website. The separate US-led coalition is believed to include around 13,000 troops.
Another 17,000 US troops are expected to start deploying to the south in the coming months.
But with attacks at a record high last year, there has been increasing talk of finding a non-military way out of the spiralling violence, with Washington raising the possibility of peace talks with "moderate" Taliban.
The insurgents insist however they will only enter negotiations after the departure of the foreign troops propping up the Western-backed Afghan government.
Abdul Qayoum Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai, who leads reconciliation efforts on behalf of Kabul, said US President Barack Obama's comments about exploring talks had sparked optimism, including amongst Taliban.
"No other way is left but talks," Karzai added. He would not give details about the process citing its sensitivity.
Comments