At least 8 killed in two seperate attacks in Afghanistan

(Update 2: adds info about Kabul attack)

Kabul, Oct 27 (efe-epa).- At least 8 people were on Tuesday killed in two separate attacks in Afghanistan, including serial car bombings followed by a gun battle at a police base in the eastern Khost province and a sticky bomb explosion in a car in northern Kabul.

At least five police officers were killed and dozens injured in the attack in Khost, which included a nine-hour long gun battle. Meanwhile 3 civilians were killed and 13 injured when a bomb attached to a car exploded in the capital.

Talib Mangal, spokesperson of the provincial governor of Khost, told EFE that a group of 10 suicide bombers launched the attack on the police complex in the Khost city around 5.55 am, which ended in the afternoon after security forces killed all the attackers.

Mangal said three of the attackers lost their lives as they detonated three car bombs to make way for the other seven gunmen to storm inside the complex.

“The remaining seven were killed by the security forces during the clearance operation,” the spokesperson said.

He said the car bombings also killed five police officers.

At least 25 security personnel and nine civilians suffered wounds in the attack. All of them were under treatment in hospitals.

No insurgent group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

The second incident took place around 1:20 pm a northern Kabul neighborhood dominated by the impoverished Hazara minority, Kabul police spokesperson Firdaws Faramarz told EFE.

He said that the bomb had been attached to a private car owned by “ordinary citizens.”

“We received three dead bodies and 13 injured persons in our hospitals, all of them civilians, from the site of the blast,” public health ministry spokesperson Noorullah Tarakai told EFE, adding that most of the wounded were out of danger.

The explosion, which has not been claimed by any group so far, is the latest in a series of sticky bomb attacks and target killings in the capital over the past few months.

“Police are investigating the attack for more details,” Faramarz said.

Violence has been on the rise in recent weeks in Afghanistan despite the start of peace talks between representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban in the Qatari capital of Doha in early September.

The two sides in the intra-Afghan talks have so far failed to reach an agreement on the rules and regulations necessary for the main phase of the negotiations that could bring an end to nearly two decades of conflict in the country.

The talks are a result of a peace deal signed between the United States and the insurgents in the Qatari capital of Doha on Feb.29 that laid the groundwork for the phased withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in return for guarantees that they would not use the war-ravaged country for activities against Washington.

However, in recent weeks, the Taliban have carried out several attacks across the country, resulting in dozens of deaths of security forces members and civilians, including women and children. EFE-EPA

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