Eyewitnesses reported hearing a loud explosion followed by heavy gunfire on Friday evening. Nine Afghan civilians were injured in the incident, police spokesman Mujahed said.
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Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and the USA government are trying to draw the Taliban back into peace talks 14 years after an invasion that has killed more than 2,200 American soldiers and cost taxpayers more than $700 billion.
“It was an attack against some guesthouses very near the embassy”, Rajoy said, adding that all embassy staff had been evacuated as Afghan special forces cordoned off the area in Sherpur district in central Kabul.
“We are gathering details”, a foreign ministry spokesman in Madrid said, information that was confirmed by the Kabul police.
It was not immediately clear if the guest house was inside the embassy premises.
Commenting on the tragedy, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Friday the explosion had not been directed against the embassy itself, but a nearby guest house.
Security men near the embassy ducked from gunshots as they hauled away a limp body and two wounded men through the dark to a waiting ambulance – one bleeding from the head, the other a policeman with a gunshot wound to his leg – an AFP photographer saw.
In a statement, the terror group taunted the Afghan authorities’ “disgrace” at being unable to prevent the attack in the heavily protected part of Kabul – home to several embassies and government buildings.
“The operation took time because we wanted to rescue the people trapped in surrounding buildings and we had to move cautiously and in a proper tactical manner”, Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told Reuters.
A Taliban attack & an ensuing hours-long siege at a guesthouse in Kabul’s diplomatic enclave left 12 lifeless, together with 4 militants, cops officers stated on Saturday.
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The attack follows a 27-hour Taliban siege this week of Kandahar airport, the largest military installation in southern Afghanistan, in which at least 50 people died, including women and children.
