Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul (AP, 2/11/09).	Afghani soldier exchanging fire with Taliban fighters in Kabul (AP, 2/11/09).

Taliban Bombs Kabul Government Offices; 20 Killed

by Associated Press

NPR.org, February 11, 2009 ·

Eight Taliban gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked three Afghan government buildings Wednesday in a coordinated assault that killed 20 people in the heart of Kabul just ahead of a planned visit from the new U.S. envoy to the region.

The attacks in a city dense with barricades and armed guards underscored the difficulty of fending off the Taliban even with abundant troops and weaponry as the U.S. beefs up its presence.

The assailants sent three text messages to the leader of their terrorist cell in Pakistan before launching Wednesday's assault, said Amrullah Saleh, chief of Afghanistan's intelligence agency, underlining the links between militants in the two countries.

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, according to an AP reporter on the scene.

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 a half-mile from the Justice Ministry attack, said Defense 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 told AP in a phone call from an undisclosed location. "Today we attacked Justice Ministry compounds."

Saleh, the intelligence chief, 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 Wednesday's attacks to the assault on hotels, markets and a train station in Mumbai last November that killed 164 in India. Indian officials have blamed the Mumbai attack on the Pakistani-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Saleh did not offer any more specifics.

Twenty-one suspects were detained, he said.

The incident comes as Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama's newly appointed envoy to the region, is expected imminently in Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan. Obama has vowed to increase U.S. focus on the resurgent Taliban, including sending more troops and designating Holbrooke to help the administration chart a new strategy to beat the insurgencies raging in both countries.

The Taliban regularly uses suicide bombings in its assaults on Afghan and foreign troops, but attackers have rarely made it inside the barricaded and guarded compounds of government buildings in the capital.

Justice Minister Sarwar Danesh spoke to the AP while he was briefly trapped inside the ministry with a number of government employees.

"They used grenades and AK-47s," Danesh said of the attackers, speaking by mobile phone.

A ministry worker said he scrambled out a second-floor window to escape an advancing gunman.

"I came out of my office to see what was going on, and I saw a man with an AK-47 shooting at every employee he saw in the hall," said Nazir Mohammad, shaking as he spoke.

Wednesday's attack follows an assault last month, when a Taliban suicide bomber attacked vehicles on a road that runs by both the German Embassy and a U.S. military base. One U.S. service member and four Afghan civilians died.

Elsewhere, in Logar, one province south of Kabul, a roadside bomb exploded near a French military medical team's convoy, killing one French officer and two Afghans, said Den Mohammad Durwesh, the governor's spokesman. The French government said another soldier was seriously injured.

Also in Logar, a helicopter with the U.S.-backed coalition killed five civilians as it responded to ground fire, Durwesh said. U.S. spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment.

Associated Press writer Noor Khan contributed to this report from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Taliban attacks in Kabul kill at least 19

Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By Hamid Shalizi and Akram Walizada Hamid Shalizi And Akram Walizada –

Wed Feb 11, 6:39 am ET Reuters –

Taliban insurgents attacked two government buildings in Kabul on Wednesday killing at least 19 people, officials said, in one of the most audacious attacks on the capital by the Islamist group since their ouster in 2001.

Gunmen stormed the Justice Ministry close to the presidential palace, killing two government employees inside, while two suicide bombers attacked another state building in the north of the city, killing at least eight people, officials and witnesses said.

The incidents come at a time of worsening security in the country and a day before Richard Holbrooke, the new U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was expected to visit Kabul.

A private television station quoted a Taliban spokesman as saying seven of its fighters attacked the Justice Ministry and a Prison Department office building in revenge for the treatment of jailed insurgents.

Four would-be suicide bombers were shot dead by security guards inside the Justice Ministry and one more outside the building, while another militant was gunned down by police outside the nearby Ministry of Education, a security official said.

"During the operations, four terrorists were killed inside the Justice Ministry. Our operations still continue," Zemarai Bashary, interior ministry spokesman said, adding he had no further details about casualties.

Three security guards were also shot dead by the insurgents outside the Justice Ministry, which is close to the Presidential Palace in a heavily fortified part of Kabul.

"Security forces rescued us. I saw the bodies of two suicide bombers, perhaps more of them are being held up. Officials are still being held inside," said a Justice Ministry official, who did not want to be named, after escaping the compound.

Intermittent gunfire could be heard outside the ministry as police scaled the building using ladders to try and enter from its top floor windows, a Reuters witness said.

"COORDINATED ATTACKS"

In the north Kabul suburb of Khair Khana, two suicide bombers blew themselves up inside a Prisons Department building, killing at least eight police officers and numerous civilians, a senior police official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the attacks were coordinated.

A third would-be bomber escaped, a policeman at the scene said.

Separately, four Afghan soldiers were killed on Wednesday when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle during an operation in Logar province to the south of Kabul, provincial spokesman, Deen Mohammad Darwesh told reporters.

In another similar incident, a foreign soldier and his Afghan translator were killed, and four civilians and one Taliban fighter were killed in a foreign forces air strike in separate parts of Logar earlier in the day, he added.

The Taliban, overthrown in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, have made a comeback in recent years, carrying out a series of high-profile attacks in several parts of the country, including Kabul, since last year.

Some of the attacks were coordinated with the help of security forces, according to government officials.

The rising violence comes despite the increasing number of foreign forces in the country, currently standing at some 70,000 and expected to be boosted by an extra 17,000 U.S. soldiers this year.

(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin and Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Alex Richardson).

On eve of Holbrooke visit, Taliban attack Afghan ministries

By Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers Jonathan S. Landay, Mcclatchy Newspapers –

February 11, 2009, KABUL, Afghanistan —

Taliban fighters stormed two government ministries and the prisons administration center Wednesday in Kabul in simultaneous assaults that killed at least 19 people, wounded more than 50 and underscored the ease with which the insurgents are able to penetrate the heavily guarded Afghan capital.

All eight assailants also died in the audacious midmorning attacks, two by blowing themselves up at the prisons office and the rest in gun battles with the police inside and outside the Ministries of Justice and Education, Afghan officials said.

For more than two hours, gunmen roamed the halls of the Justice Ministry , shooting at staff members inside the building and at police outside, until security forces killed them, officials said.

The assaults came a day before Richard Holbrooke , the new special U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan , was expected to make his first visit to Kabul to assess the worsening violence in the war-torn country.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attacks, telling privately owned Ariana Television in a telephone call that they were in response to the mistreatment of captured insurgents by the government.

Gen. Zahir Azimi , a Defense Ministry spokesman, said 19 people were killed and 54 wounded in the attacks.

The assaults began at 10 a.m. and sent bystanders outside the two ministries, in the traffic-choked heart of the city near the presidential palace, scurrying for cover.

Amanuddin Jamal, who was walking outside the Justice Ministry , said a gunman began firing an assault rifle at guards at the building's entrance as four other assailants blasted their way inside.

"There was a person who had a shawl wrapped around him. He began shooting from a Kalashnikov and his companions entered the Justice Ministry ," Jamal said.

Mohammad Daoud Amin , the district police chief, said police officers returned fire, killing the attacker, while the four gunmen stalked the halls inside shooting ministry staff.

Justice Minister Mohammad Sarwar Danesh was in his office at the time, but was escorted out of the building safely, Amin said.

Security forces exchanged fire in the building for more than two hours with the gunmen, who on several occasions loosed fusillades of bullets from windows at police officers deployed outside.

Several employees were seen fleeing the building, their faces creased in terror.

Meanwhile, a man dressed in the uniform of the National Security Directorate , the country's top intelligence agency, stepped out of a car and approached the gate of the Education Ministry , which is about 500 yards from the Justice Ministry on the opposite side of Zarnigar Park .

Several witnesses said the man opened fire with an assault rifle at a wooden guard booth on the wall that surrounds the building, and died when police shot back.

"He emptied his magazine and was putting another into his weapon," said Najibullah Haideri , a ministry guard. "My commander ordered him to lay down his gun, but he continued shooting and my commander shot him."

The third assault occurred at the department of prisons in a northern section of the city, said Gen. Mohammad Arif , a senior official at the facility.

He said that two "suicide attackers" approached the entrance from different directions.

"One of them faced resistance by the guard at the gate and he blew himself up. The second one got into the building and blew himself up. In total, seven people were killed," Arif said.