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HERAT Militants armed with guns and suicide vests launched a coordinated attack in an Afghan city on Wednesday, setting off a series of explosions and killing three people, officials said.
Such coordinated attacks targeting the Western-backed government have become increasingly prevalent in Afghanistan, underscoring the increasing sophistication of Taliban-led insurgent attacks nine years into the conflict.
Eight suicide bombers managed to detonate their explosives outside government buildings in Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz province, where witnesses reported gunbattles between police and militants in government offices.
“They came in a car packed with explosives. They tried to attack the building housing the provincial council and the court,” Nimroz governor Ghulam Dastagir Azad told AFP.
Three people were killed in the attack, among them two police and a member of the local parliament, and 11 more wounded, provincial police chief Abdul Jabar told AFP.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the southwestern province, which shares a border with Helmand — the volatile vortex of the insurgency that has blighted Afghanistan for nine years.
“We sent six suicide bombers and three other attackers. They have attacked several government buildings, including the governors office,” said Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi.
“The fighting is still going on.”
Azad said police opened fire on the attackers as they drove up in a vehicle packed with explosives.
The car bomb failed to explode, but eight of the bombers were able to detonate their explosive vests.
Witness Ahmed Khan told AFP he heard several explosions in the provincial capital and gunfire from the governors office. The Afghan interior ministry said the militants targeted civilian as well as government buildings.
“A group of terrorists attacked some civilian and government buildings this morning in Zaranj. The police response was very quick and strong,” said spokesman Zemarai Bashary.
“Five suicide bombers have been killed. There is an operation still ongoing in one location where some of the attackers are resisting.
“They entered the governors office first, but police killed all those attackers instantly.”
Security in Nimroz has deteriorated in recent years amid reports that Taliban insurgents are crossing into the province from Helmand, where US, Nato and Afghan troops conducted a major operation earlier this year.
Nato and the United States are throwing thousands of extra troops into Afghanistan, where their deployment is to peak at 150,000 in August under a strategy designed to bring a swift end to the conflict.
Most of the extra troops are deploying in the south, the heartland of the insurgency, with the main focus on the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.
