A dozen injured in Nangarhar clash

JALALABAD (Pajhwok): A dozen people were injured after militants attacked security forces in the Chaparhar district of eastern Nangarhar province, officials and residents said on Wednesday.

Police spokesman Col. Hazrat Hussain Mashraqiwal told Pajhwok Afghan News a group of armed insurgents attacked a security post in the Dako area a day earlier, sparking a gun-battle.

He said three attackers were killed and one policeman slightly injured in the clash that lasted one hour.

But a resident of the area, Haji Gul Pacha, said the clash lasted 12 hours, saying police reinforcements coming from Jalalabad, the provincial capital, were attacked at various locations on their way to the clash site.

He said the militants had been attacking the security forces from civilian houses, where they forced their way inside.

Pacha said a mortar shell fired by government forces hit his house, injuring his three family members.

The injured included wife of his brother, a granddaughter and a 12-year-old nephew, he said, adding the injured woman and girl were stable, but the boy was in critical condition.

The governor’s spokesman, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, confirmed the incident, but had no details about casualties.

Provincial civil hospital director Dr. Humayun Zaheer confirmed receiving one injured woman and two children at the hospital on Tuesday evening. He said they were in stable condition.

But another doctor at the hospital said six Afghan Army personnel and two policemen had been brought to the hospital with injuries.

The Ministry of Defence in a statement said one ANA soldier was killed during a clash with insurgents in Chaparhar.

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