Earlier today, the Taliban killed four members of the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence service, and two civilians in a suicide assault that targeted the NDS headquarters in Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangarhar. From TOLONews:
The incident took place at about 5 a.m. local time in Jalalabad, the capital of the province, when a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives at the gate of the NDS office and five minutes later a second suicide car bomber exploded, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the Nangarhar governor, said.
“The two suicide car bombers detonated their explosives made way for five other insurgents to enter the compounds of the NDS,” he said. “The five insurgents were gunned down by Afghan security forces after a five hour clash.”
The Taliban claimed credit for the attack in a statement released on Voice of Jihad, their official propaganda website. The Taliban claimed that the attack was executed by only one suicide bomber and five “martyr Mujahideen equipped with rockets, PK heavy machine guns, Kalashnikovs, explosive-belts and hand grenades.” The other explosion was the result of a remotely-detonated car bomb.
The suicide bomber was identified as “Abdullah Nangarhari,” and the five fighters who penetrated the compound were identified as “Kalimullah, Akhtar Muhammad, Muhmamad Ismail and Fawad hailing from Nangarhar and Musa from Kunar provinces.”
As usual, the Taliban exaggerated the effects of their attack, claiming that “as many as 71 agents of NDS and security forces, the ANA and ANP were killed and a further 83 got severely injured.”
Afghan and Coalition forces in Nangarhar are often targeted by the Taliban. The Taliban have launched two other suicide assaults in the province so far this year. In January, a suicide assault team killed a US soldier at a base in Ghani Khel. In March, another Taliban team team attacked the police headquarters in Jalalabad, killing 18 people.
The Peshawar Regional Military Shura, one of the Afghan Taliban’s four major commands, directs activities in eastern and northeastern Afghanistan, including in Nangarhar province. In 2011, the Taliban appointed Sheikh Mohammed Aminullah to lead its Peshawar Regional Military Shura; he was added to the United Nations Sanctions Committee’s list of “individuals and entities associated with al Qaeda” in 2009.
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