Crime & Justice

At least three killed in another attack in eastern Afghanistan

Kabul, Sep 22 (EFE).- At least three people, including two Taliban fighters, were killed on Wednesday in an armed attack carried out by unknown assailants in the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, the third such attack in the area in less than a week.

“Unfortunately, three persons were martyred in the armed attack, of which two were security forces and one civilian,” the Taliban’s provincial culture and information director Hanif Nangarhari told EFE.

The incident took place on Wednesday morning in the police district number seven of Jalalabad, capital of the Nangarhar province, when an indeterminate number of gunmen opened fire.

The attack’s purpose or perpetrators are not clear yet, and Nangarhari said that an investigation was underway.

This is the third such incident to hit Jalalabad in less than a week, after successive attacks on Saturday and Sunday killed at least 6 people and injured 25.

The attacks over the weekend were claimed by the Islamic State group through a statement on their online propaganda arm Amaq news agency.

Although the IS claimed that the attacks had targeted Taliban fighters, the latter claimed that they were aimed at civilians.

The attacks were the first to take place in Afghanistan since the Taliban took complete control of the country after the withdrawal of United States troops on Aug. 31.

On Tuesday, the Taliban’s interim government asserted that the attacks in Jalalabad over the weekend would be “the last” to be committed by the IS in Afghanistan, and that the group does not pose a challenge for the authorities.

Nangarhar has remained the main area of operations for the IS since it established a presence in the country in 2015.

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