KHOST – Three Afghan policemen were killed Thursday when Taliban militants struck at a police training centre in one of three suicide attacks to hit Afghanistan on the same day.Insurgents are increasingly targeting Afghan security forces, whose role will increase as US-led NATO troops prepare to hand over responsibility for security in seven areas from July and end frontline fighting in 2014.There has also been a recent rash of suicide bombings, a key Taliban tactic, with authorities reporting seven in the last two days.
The latest major incident came in the troubled eastern province of Paktya, near the Pakistani border, where three suicide bombers attacked the police training centre in Aryoob Zazai district, said the governor’s office.”One of the attackers managed to detonate his suicide vest, as a result of which two local police and one national policeman were killed and two national policemen were injured,” said spokesman for the office, Rohullah Samoon.
“The second suicide attacker was gunned down before blowing up himself. The third attacker escaped and police are looking for him,” he added.The attack came one day after a suicide bomber killed 10 people, including a well-known elder, at a tribal gathering in the eastern province of Kunar.The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Paktya attack, as well as for a bombing 20 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of Kabul which targeted the office of a senior local official, wounding four people including three police.
“A suicide attacker detonated an explosive-laden small truck in front of the office of the Musayi district chief this morning,” Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said.”Three policemen and a civilian passer-by have been injured in the blast.
