Two Afghan guards were killed Thursday when suicide bombers and attackers besieged the office of a logistics company working with foreign forces, near the NATO-led force’s western HQ.
Western troops were deployed to quash the attack at the offices of Monaco-based international firm ES-KO on the outskirts of Herat city, where NATO soldiers passed control to Afghan forces four months ago.
It happened a few hundred metres (yards) from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters in western Afghanistan, which is Italian-led, as well as Herat’s airport.
The attack raises questions about security in the relatively peaceful province, handed over in July as part of plans for the 140,000 mainly US foreign troop force to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
But in Brussels Thursday, NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted its mission in Afghanistan was “moving in the right direction” despite a string of headline-grabbing “spectacular” attacks in recent weeks.
These included a car bomb Saturday which killed 17 people, including 13 foreigners, in the deadliest single attack on NATO in Kabul in 10 years of war.
One foreign soldier was among five people injured in the latest attack, according to Herat governor’s spokesman Mohayddin Noori.
An AFP reporter saw a wounded Italian soldier being walked away from the scene but a spokesman for the NATO-led ISAF could not confirm any injuries to its personnel.
Officials said the attack happened when two suicide bombers detonated a car bomb at the gates of the office, allowing three accomplices to get inside.
“Five attackers were killed along with two guards working for ES-KO company,” Noori told a press conference after the attack finished.
“Five people — one policeman, one ISAF soldier and one intelligence officer along with two other guards of the company — were wounded in today’s attack.”
Taliban claimed they carried out the suicide raid, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
Taliban spokesman Muhammad Yusuf, in a statement monitored by SITE, said one of the fighters detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at the gates, enabling other attackers to enter.
The ISAF spokesman in western Afghanistan, who declined to be quoted by name, said it had provided ground and air support to Thursday’s operation, which took place outside the compound of Regional Command West.
Noori said that ISAF helicopters had been scrambled.
Noor Khan Nekzad, a regional police spokesman, said foreign forces killed the insurgents but the ISAF spokesman could not confirm this.
One witness, who did not give his name, told AFP he saw several wounded people evacuated after two men with guns and rocket-propelled grenades ran into the office and opened fire.
Attacks on contractors working with ISAF happen relatively frequently in Afghanistan. ES-KO works at a number of locations in Afghanistan and its recent projects have included extending the runway at Herat airport.
