The Taliban targeted top government officials in Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing seven people in a suicide car bombing and firing rockets at the vice president and interior minister, who escaped unhurt.
Both of the attacks struck central Afghanistan, not far from the heavily secured capital Kabul, and were claimed by the militia leading a nearly 10-year insurgency against US-led NATO troops and the Afghan government.In the first attack, an attacker drove a car laden with explosives towards the education and agriculture departments in Mahmud Raqi, the capital of Kapisa province northeast of Kabul. Officials said the driver blew himself up when he was stopped at a nearby checkpoint.
The interior ministry said: “At around 10:00am (0530 GMT), a suicide car bomb attack was carried out. As a result, five civilians and two policemen were martyred and one policeman and three civilians were injured.” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said it had carried out the attack which he claimed had targeted the French ambassador to Afghanistan and French soldiers who were visiting the governor’s office at the time. The ambassador told AFP he was 15 minutes away when the attack happened and that no one in his party was hurt. “I had a meeting this morning with the government then with all the Kapisa deputies. At the moment, I have nothing that allows me to think I was targeted,” Bernard Bajolet said.
“My visit was known because all the deputies of Kapisa were involved.” The interior ministry added that the governor’s office was around two kilometres (a mile) from where the blast happened.
Lieutenant Colonel Eric de la Presle, a spokesman for French troops based in Kapisa, said that no French soldiers were present at the time of attack.
In the second incident, Afghan Vice President Karim Khalili and Interior Minister Besmullah Mohammadi escaped after a rocket attack targeted a police centre they were visiting but landed close by instead.
Provincial spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said the attack happened in the Chaki Wardak district of Wardak province, a restive area west of Kabul. “There was a security meeting in the police training centre at which the interior minister and second vice president were present,” he said.
“After the meeting was over and we were leaving, a rocket landed within a few hundred metres of the centre but nobody was injured,” he added. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for that attack.
Khalili, one of President Hamid Karzai’s two deputies, was born in Wardak.
Taliban-led insurgents frequently launch attacks on government officials as well as the police and army but it is relatively rare for two such senior figures to be targeted. There are around 130,000 international forces in Afghanistan battling the Taliban insurgency alongside Afghan government forces.
About 90,000 are from the United States and President Barack Obama is expected to announce shortly how many will withdraw in the coming weeks. A limited handover of power from foreign to Afghan forces and officials is also due to take place in seven areas of Afghanistan from sometime in July, although the exact timetable is still not clear.
