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'Spectacular' raids on Afghan ministries kill 28
Published: February 12, 2009- Digg
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KABUL (Agencies) - Eight Taliban gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked three Afghan government buildings Wednesday in a coordinated assault that killed 20 people in Kabul.
The attacks in a capital city dense with barricades and armed guards underscored the difficulty of fending off the Taliban even with abundant troops and weaponry as the US beefs up its presence.
Five men armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked the Justice Ministry in late morning, shooting at workers and temporarily trapping the minister and scores of others inside, witnesses said. The gunmen appeared to hold the building for about two hours before Afghan security forces regained control about midday.
At about the same time, two men in suicide vests blew themselves up at the ministry’s correction department across town. A third assailant in a suicide vest was shot as he tried to force his way into the Education Ministry, about one kilometre from the Justice Ministry attack, said Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.
At least 20 people were killed in the attacks and 57 wounded, said Mohammad Hanif Atmar, the interior minister. All eight attackers died, Azimi said, bringing the total death toll to 28.
Zabiullah Mujaheed, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the attacks were in response to the alleged mistreatment of Taliban prisoners in Afghan government jails. “We have warned the Afghan government to stop torturing our prisoners,” Mujaheed said in a phone call from an undisclosed location. “Today we attacked Justice Ministry compounds.”
The assailants sent three text messages to their leader in Pakistan before launching the assault, said Amrullah Saleh, chief of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.
Saleh said officials had intelligence indicating a ‘spectacular’ attack involving multiple suicide bombers was imminent, but said they did not have enough specifics to prevent it.
He compared the attacks to the assault on hotels, markets and a train station in Mumbai last November that killed 164 in India.
The incident comes as Richard Holbrooke, US President Barack Obama’s newly-appointed envoy to the region, is expected imminently in Afghanistan from neighbouring Pakistan. Obama has vowed to increase US focus on the resurgent Taliban, including sending more troops and designating Holbrooke, who is helping the administration chart a new strategy to beat the insurgencies raging in both countries.
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