Afghanistan: Deadly attack in Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan

[Devil Soul]

Insurgents have carried out a gun and bomb attack in the south Afghan town of Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan province, leaving at least 22 dead, officials say.

They said the violence included three suicide bombings followed by fighting in a market, adding that all eight attackers had now been killed.

The dead include Ahmad Omid Khpolwak, a local BBC reporter.

The Taliban say they carried out the attack, which comes amid renewed violence in Afghanistan.

Nato says it is providing air support to Afghan forces in Tarin Kowt.

TV station stormed
Afghan intelligence officials said at least one bomb exploded near the governor's office and one near the offices of a security firm owned by a local militia commander. It is not clear where the third bomb was detonated.

Most of the fighting took place near these offices, which are close to the main market and a building which houses a local radio and TV station.

Residents said heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles were used by both sides.

Health officials said 22 people had been killed including three women and 40 injured, most of them civilians.

Among the dead is Ahmad Omid Khpolwak, a reporter for the BBC Pashto radio service as well as the Pajhwok news agency.

He was one of several people killed when the TV and radio station was attacked.

BBC Global News director Peter Horrocks said: "The BBC and the whole world are grateful to journalists like Ahmad Omid who courageously put their lives on the line to report from dangerous places."

Two soldiers were among the dead but no senior government officials have been harmed, officials said.

Eyewitness Mohammad Dadu, a butcher at the market, told the BBC: ''I didn't have time to close my shop. I saw two dead bodies and four injured people with blood on their clothes."

Afghan militants have stepped up their attacks as Nato troops begin the handover of security to local forces in parts of the country.

On Wednesday the mayor of the volatile city of Kandahar was killed in a suicide attack.

Two weeks ago, President Hamid Karzai's influential half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, was killed in the same city.
BBC News - Afghanistan: Deadly attack in Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan

 

[Ahmad]

I think they were all suicide bombers.

 

[xTra]

Very Bad, God only knows when this part of the world will become stable.

 

[somebozo]

Arab news
Deadly attack in south Afghanistan

By ISMAIL SAMEEM | REUTERS

Published: Jul 28, 2011 22:35 Updated: Jul 28, 2011 22:35

KANDAHAR: Suicide bombers armed with guns killed at least 19 people and wounded another 35 when they attacked government buildings in Afghanistan’s southern Uruzgan province on Thursday, public health officials said.

The attack was the deadliest in the south in nearly six months, and comes shortly after the killing of a string of powerful regional leaders, including a former governor of Uruzgan who was gunned down in his home in Kabul this month.

Up to six suicide bombers stormed the provincial governor’s compound and the police chief’s compound in Tirin Kot, capital of Uruzgan, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.

Three bombers had detonated their explosives and police were engaged in a gun battle with the remaining attackers, he added.

Uruzgan is a largely rural and mountainous province north of Kandahar, to which it has many cultural and tribal links, and the Taleban have long had a presence there.

“Nineteen people have been killed,” said Khan Agha Nehakhil, head of Uruzgan’s health department, adding that security forces and civilians, including one journalist, were among the dead.

Another 37 people were wounded. Nehakhil had earlier given a slightly lower toll.

The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack and spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said six militants were involved.

Engineer Farid, head of regional state television channel, Uruzgan TV, said he had heard one blast inside the channel’s offices and that two suicide bombers had entered the building, which is located around 100 meters from the governor’s compound. A reporter who worked for Pajhwok, an Afghan news agency, and for the BBC was among the dead.

“Unfortunately one hour ago we got the news that our reporter in Uruzgan, Omid Khpalwak, 25, was killed. He was in Uruzgan TV station to arrange an interview,” said Danish Karokhil, chief editor for Pajhwok News Agency.

“He was trapped there for three hours and couldn’t escape from the battle.” It was the deadliest attack in southern Afghanistan, the Taleban’s heartland, since a February assault on the provincial police headquarters in the city of Kandahar, that killed 19.

It comes in the wake of several high-profile assassinations and just a day after a suicide bomber killed the mayor of Kandahar city, adding to fears of instability across the south which has been the focus of intense NATO fighting.

On July 17, gunmen killed a former governor of Uruzgan and close adviser of Karzai in his home in the Afghan capital, Kabul. A lawmaker from the same province who was visiting Jan Mohammad Khan, was also killed in the attack.

That attack came only days after the killing of Ahmad Wali Karzai, a half-brother of the president and one of the most powerful and controversial men in southern Afghanistan.

More than half of all targeted killings in Afghanistan between April and June were also carried out in Kandahar, according to a UN report. The assassinations have left a power vacuum in the south of the country that could weaken the president’s hold on a critical area that has long been a Taleban stronghold.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taleban government in late 2001, with high foreign troop deaths and record civilian casualties. Insurgents have also stepped up an effective assassination campaign targeting Afghan government officials.

© 2010 Arab News