February 12, 2011
Police Headquarters Is Hit in Afghan South
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and TAIMOOR SHAH
KABUL, Afghanistan -- At least four gunmen wearing vests with explosives in them attacked police headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar on Saturday, the third such attack since the start of the year in the strategically important city.
The assault, a complex operation involving several car bombs and a battery of rocket-propelled grenades, killed at least 19 people, most of them police officers, according to Afghan officials and witnesses.
The attack caused near panic in central Kandahar as residents, hearing the heavy gunfire and explosions, fled the area and the police cordoned off all the roads into downtown. The fighting continued for nearly five hours before the police succeeded in killing three would-be suicide bombers and wounding and detaining a fourth, according to Afghan police officials.
An American military spokesman said that it was likely that a fifth attacker drove the bomb-laden vehicle that exploded first.
"Today, a big tragedy happened in Kandahar City," said Tooryalai Wesa, the provincial governor. He said the attackers took shelter in a wedding hall near the police headquarters, firing rockets and lobbing grenades from there.
Three of the rockets hit the headquarters, he said, while another hit a nearby school, wounding nine students.
The governor strongly condemned the attack and sought to reassure residents. "Now the city is under control; the security personnel are looking for more suspects' cars," he said. "Whoever carried out these attacks are the enemy of Afghanistan and Islam; they will never be forgiven."
The United States has made a major push to stabilize Kandahar Province, a Taliban stronghold, since last summer. For several months, the provincial capital had been calm, but political assassinations and bombings started to increase again late last year.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the attack Saturday.
The dead included 15 police officers and one intelligence officer as well as 3 civilians; 49 civilians were wounded along with 2 police officers and 2 members of the National Intelligence Directorate, said Gen. Muhammad Salim Ehsas, the regional police director. Insurgents have repeatedly made a target of the Kandahar police headquarters and some mounted a similarly complex attack last March 13 using multiple bombers; they killed 35 people then.
In Saturday's attack, the insurgents were trying to breach the entrance of the police compound using bomb-laden vehicles and then rush inside, General Ehsas said. "The plan was to engage police in explosions and then aim at the headquarters, but the police were alert," he said, adding that there were six vehicles prepared to explode but that only three did. The other three were defused.
At least one was a sports utility vehicle and one was a motorized rickshaw, said Lt. Col. Webster Wright, the chief public affairs officer at the Kandahar air base.
According to people who lived in the wedding hall in rented rooms there, the attackers, whom they described as young men who were wearing scarves over their faces, were seen rushing through the building heavily armed.
Another man, Khan Aka, said his that son was in the school next door to the police headquarters and that neighbors rushed to tell him the boy was wounded by the rocket that landed there.
"It's very hard when you hear that your son is injured or dead," he said. "Even schools are not safe now. We are just alive. There is nothing good to expect in this country. We are in a dilemma whether to send our boys to school or to stop them from going."
As sounds of gunfire echoed from different directions near police headquarters, merchants were locking their shops and rushing away from the shooting. The police blocked nearby roads even as people tried to escape the scene.
The attack was the fifth by suicide bombers in Kandahar Province this year, including the three in the last two weeks in the city of Kandahar. The most recent one, on Feb. 7, was carried out against customs officials and killed an American civilian adviser to the customs department.
One of the attacks, on Jan. 29, killed the deputy governor, and one at a bathhouse in Spinbaldak killed 17 people on Jan. 7.
In Kabul, Parliament, which was elected more than five months ago and officially convened late last month, was still struggling to organize itself and elect a speaker. Lawmakers held their third round of voting on Saturday, but none of the candidates were successful in winning the 121 votes necessary to take the post.
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan. Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.