Several dozen people were killed and hundreds more wounded in Kabul on Tuesday morning, when armed militants—believed to be Taliban forces—staged a coordinated assault on a government security compound in the Afghan capital. Here’s the Associated Press with more on the attacks, which occurred during morning rush hour and claimed the lives of numerous civilians:
Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahimi, the Kabul police chief, said that at least 28 people were killed in the attack, which began when a suicide car bomber struck near the agency compound’s gates. After the explosion, armed gunmen stormed the compound and waged a prolonged battle with government security forces. Security officials confirmed that the battle has ended.
Ismail Kawasi, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry, said so far 327 wounded, including women and children, have been brought to area hospitals. An Interior Ministry statement said that dozens of civilians were killed and wounded in the attack. The casualty figures are expected to rise.
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack. As the New York Times explains, coordinated attacks in urban centers remain crucial to the group’s insurgency, and they often unfold according to the same pattern as this one did: “After a vehicle-borne explosion creates chaos and an entry to their target building, militants equipped with weapons and suicide vests storm in and fight until the police, and the elite Crisis Response Unit, kill them and clear the area.”
The government agency that was the target of Tuesday’s attack was the Directorate of Security for Dignitaries, an elite security force tasked with protecting senior government officials. The assault—which occurred a week after the Taliban announced its spring offensive—ended several weeks of relative calm in the capital, according to the Washington Post, which described the carnage as “one of the most devastating attacks in Kabul in years.”
