9 dead in Kandahar police centre attack

KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): Six policemen and three suicide attackers were killed and another 12 people wounded in suicide blasts and gun attacks in southern Kandahar province on Thursday, officials said.

The six security personnel were killed when a suicide attacker detonated an explosives-filled ambulance near a police centre in Kandahar city, police chief, Lt. Gen. Mohammad Mujahid, told a news conference.

The blast came hours later two attackers held up in an under construction building opened fire at police at a complex just outside Kandahar city. The centre is used for police training as well as army and police recruitment, Mujahid said.

The attackers laced heavy and light guns targeted police and threw hand grenades from the four-storey building close to the centre. The attackers were later killed by police.

Three hours later, at about 1:00pm, a suicide attacker in an ambulance detonated the explosives-laden vehicle near Afghan and international forces who were evacuating casualties from the site of the earlier attack, Mujahid said. As a result, four intelligence operatives, one policeman and an Afghan soldier were killed and a dozen policemen were injured.

The governor’s office in a statement said insurgents have blown up an ambulance vehicle full of explosives which killed six members of the national security forces and wounded 10 more, including one civilian.

Three insurgents thought to have been armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were also killed, it added.

A doctor on duty at the Mirwais Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had been delivered eight wounded people, including three policemen. The Taliban fighters have asserted responsibility for the attack.

Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said a large number of Afghan soldiers and police were killed in the suicide attacks which followed by gunshots. However, he had no exact figures for casualties on government officials.

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