Asianbangla Desk : Gunmen attacked an intelligence training centre in Kabul yesterday, officials said, as families buried loved ones killed by a suicide bomber a day earlier in the war-weary Afghan capital. Afp, Kabul
The attack on the training facility was the latest incident in a blood-soaked week that saw militants deliver crippling blows to government forces across Afghanistan.
“Clashes are ongoing and the area is cordoned off by the Afghan security forces,” said Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai.
The firefight erupted near a training centre overseen by the National Security Directorate — Afghanistan’s intelligence agency — with the gunmen holed up in a construction site near residential buildings, an official at the scene said.
Live television footage showed humvees patrolling the empty streets while gunfire echoed and a helicopter circling above.
Commandos were also deployed to the scene to help contain the fighting, according to another security official.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident.
The attack comes just hours after a suicide bomber detonated explosives inside an education centre in a predominantly Shia area of western Kabul, where students were studying for college entrance exams, killing at least 37 people.
The attack was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group yesterday via their Amaq propaganda service, as families of the dead held a mass funeral where mourners wept and clutched the wooden coffins.
An industrial-sized digger helped soften the arid ground for the fresh graves as men removed rocks from the soil with pickaxes.
Mourners decried the unrelenting bloodshed, while others dismissed murmurings of possible ceasefires and peace negotiations between the government and the Taliban, even though the attack was claimed by IS.
“Death to your ceasefire and death to your ghost peace talks,” cried one of the funeral attendees. “They are killing our educated people and everyday they are killing us.”
