One insurgent slammed an explosives-rigged pickup truck into a checkpoint and immediately afterward three insurgents rushed into the neighborhood, seizing control of at least one building and sparking a gunbattle with Afghan and NATO forces, Kandahar police chief Gen. Abdul Razzaq said. The firefight lasted more than two hours before the militants were shot dead.
The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, whose office was located in the compound that came under attack, said three of its staff were killed and two wounded in the combined assault and bombing. It did not say if they were Afghans or foreigners.
“This is a tragedy for UNHCR and for the families of the dead and wounded,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “It also underscores the great risks for humanitarian workers in Afghanistan.”
The assault was the second major attack in three days to target foreigners or NATO troops in the country, and spotlighted the insurgents’ ability to continue to carry out major attacks despite a 10-year NATO campaign against them. The US-led coalition is gradually handing over security responsibilities to its Afghan counterparts and plans to withdraw its combat forces by the end of 2014.
“Despite the insurgency’s failures this past year, it remains capable and, enabled by safe havens in Pakistan, continues to contest (Afghan and NATO) progress in some parts of the country,” German Brig Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a coalition spokesman in Afghanistan told reporters in Kabul.
But Jacobson also said the coalition and its Afghan partners had made significant gains against the Taleban and that incidents such as the bombing in Kandahar were not indicative of the insurgents strengthening their reach.
“It is not to gain a military victory, it is to gain media attention,” he said.
The blast caused extensive damage to the UNCHR’s offices. Associated Press video footage showed large chunks of the building’s outer walls blown out, as well as the windows while the interior was in shambles. The street around the building was strewn with rubble.
Immediately after the blast, the gunmen seized control of an animal clinic near the office of the International Relief and Development organization, said provincial police spokesman Ghorzang, who like many Afghans goes by one name.
The insurgents then managed to enter the IRD’s office through the UNHCR building, Ghorzang said.
The Taleban, for whom Kandahar is a traditional stronghold, claimed responsibility for the attack. Spokesman Qari Yousef said the insurgents were targeting what he claimed was a guest house affiliated with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
The UNAMA does not operate a guest house in the area. However, the clinic and IRD offices entered by the attackers are near guest houses affiliated with both the IRD and the UNHCR. The area is also home to several other international NGO offices and guest houses.
Razzaq, the provincial police chief, said that four civilians and the district police chief, Abdul Aziz Khan, were killed and three people wounded. Earlier, he said that four people had been wounded.
UNAMA spokesman Dan McNortan said all of the agency’s staff, both Afghan and foreign, was accounted for.
The attack comes two days after the Taleban launched a brazen midday suicide bombing in Kabul, striking a NATO convoy on Saturday and killing 17 people, including five NATO service members, one Canadian soldier and eight civilian contractors.
