At least five people, including a policeman, were killed in Afghanistan’s Ghazni city on Wednesday after a suspected group of Taliban suicide bombers attacked the provincial Appeal Court compound.
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A statement from the Interior Ministry said “four terrorists” were involved in the attack in the city of Ghazni, the capital of the eastern Ghazni province.
A spokesman for the provincial governor said a suicide bomber first blew himself at the court’s entrance, after which three other attackers stormed the building.
The Taliban, who are waging a bloody insurgency to topple the foreign-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani, said they killed six and took 20 members of the Afghan security forces with them.
Afghan security officials secure the scene of an attack by the Taliban at local courts in Ghazni, Afghanistan June 1, 2016.
While the Pakistani military, widely regarded as the Afghan Taliban’s patron, publicly supports peace talks, it has done little to bring the insurgents to the negotiating table, the USA officials and independent experts say. They were also wearing Afghan government uniforms underneath.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban, said that four buses carrying around 200 people were stopped by their fighters in Ali Abad District in Kunduz province on Tuesday.
Kunduz has been witnessing deteriorating security situation during the past few months as the Taliban were trying to destabilise the northern provinces.
Highways around Afghanistan passing through insurgency-prone areas have become exceedingly risky, with the Taliban and other armed groups frequently kidnapping or killing travellers.
An Afghan official says the Taliban have attacked several buses on a road in the country’s north, killing many people and abducting at least 35. The blast wounded three other policemen who were serving as Khan’s bodyguards.
“The bodies of 10 of them were later found in the area”, he added.
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The fight in southern Afghanistan has intensified, as the Taliban concentrate their war on Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces.
