Seven Taliban suicide attackers stormed a police station in the centre of Jalalabad city in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing 10 policemen in a major assault ahead of the presidential election.
The target of the three-hour truck bomb and gun assault was a police station near the governor’s house in the city, which has been the scene of repeated militant attacks in recent years.
The Taliban have vowed a campaign of violence to disrupt the election on April 5, and a spokesman for the insurgents claimed responsibility for the early-morning suicide strike which also left a civilian dead.
“Ten policemen, including the district police chief, were killed and 14 police were wounded,” deputy interior minister Mohammad Ayoub Salangi told AFP. “One civilian was also killed, and all seven attackers.”
Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the interior ministry, said one or two attackers had holed up in a small room inside the police station before they were finally killed by security forces.
The attack began when a mini-truck loaded with explosives was detonated at the police station’s entrance, leaving debris littered across the surrounding streets as security forces cordoned off the scene.
About 20 people had been treated for injuries at the city’s main hospital.
– Taliban target elections –
The area of the attack includes the compound of the governor of Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, several other government buildings and the state-run television station.
Ten days ago Taliban leaders vowed to target the presidential election, urging their fighters to attack polling staff, voters and security forces before the vote to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai.
On Tuesday a suicide bomber killed 16 people at a crowded market in the northern province of Faryab. There was no claim of responsibility for that attack.
“(These attacks) are an attempt to disrupt the elections, an important political and historic event in the history of Afghanistan,” a government statement said, accusing the militants of receiving support from neighbouring Pakistan.
Previous Afghan elections have been badly marred by violence as the Islamist militants display their opposition to the US-backed polls.
Another bloodstained election would damage claims by international donors that the expensive military and civilian intervention in Afghanistan since 2001 has made progress in establishing a functioning state system.
US-led NATO combat troops are withdrawing from the country after 13 years of fighting a fierce Islamist insurgency, which erupted when the Taliban were ousted from power after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Karzai, who is barred from serving a third term in office, has consistently said Afghanistan will hold a safe and clean election, despite previous violence and allegations of massive fraud when he won the last poll five years ago.
Relations between Karzai and the United States have been severely strained over the president’s decision not to sign an agreed deal for a small US force to remain in Afghanistan from 2015 on counter-terrorism and training operations.
Another point of friction has been the release of Afghan prisoners that the US believes are dangerous militants.
On Thursday, 55 more prisoners were freed in a move that drew complaints from the NATO mission, which said the men had not been not processed through the Afghan judicial system.
“Insurgents in this group of detainees have caused casualties amongst coalition and Afghan forces,” the NATO mission said in a statement.
“Detainees should be subject to due process in an Afghan court.”
The election front-runners are Abdullah Abdullah, who came second in 2009, former foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul and former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani.