KABUL: Three people were killed and 30 others injured on Saturday when gunmen stormed New Kabul Bank’s branch in eastern Paktia province, according to provincial officials.

Gen. Toryalai Abdyani, the province’s police chief, said five militants attacked the bank; first a suicide bomber carried out an attack, then four gunmen started shooting and were later killed by security forces.

“All four gunmen were shot and killed by security forces while people were evacuated to a safe place,” Andyani added.

Two of the bank’s security guards were killed in the initial suicide attack in Gardez, the province’s capital of, said Abdullah Hsrat, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Paktia. “Unfortunately the bank is located in the main market inside the city, that is why a number of shops and the bank building were damaged,” said Hsrat.

A doctor at the provincial hospital in Gardez said that three killed and at least 30 wounded were brought to the hospital by ambulances. Most of the wounded are civilians and a number of them are in critical condition, he added. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Taliban insurgents have recently increased their attacks against Afghan security forces across the country. Taliban fighters launched a three-pronged attack on parts of the central-eastern Afghan city of Ghazni overnight, driving a Humvee packed with explosives into the entrance of a district governor’s compound during the assault, police said on Saturday.

The assault on Ghazni, on the highway linking the capital Kabul with the southern city of Kandahar, ramps up the Taliban’s spring offensive and comes as US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis prepares to present recommendations to President Donald Trump on future troop levels in Afghanistan.

In the north of the country, the Taliban has stepped up its operations and targeted Kunduz, a city that they have twice managed to seize for brief periods in the past.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2017