For Quick Alerts
ALLOW NOTIFICATIONS  
For Daily Alerts
Oneindia App Download

Three suspected Taliban bank attackers killed in Kabul encounter

By Super Admin
|
Google Oneindia News

Kabul, Aug.19 (ANI): Afghan police have killed at least three gunmen who stormed a bank building in Kabul this morning.

A report by The Times said the police is conducting a search of the premises after engaging the attackers in brief gun battle inside the building.

The building is just a few hundred metres from the presidential palace compound where President Hamid Karzai lives.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack which followed a suicide car bombing yesterday that killed eight people and wounded more than 50 in Kabul. He also claimed that 20 armed suicide attackers wearing explosive vests had entered Kabul earlier this morning.

Police initially said the attack might have been a robbery gone wrong, but later confirmed that it was carried out by the Taliban.

"We have killed three of the attackers inside the bank," The Times quoted Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, the Kabul criminal investigation police chief, as saying, and added that "They were Taliban."

The Taliban has pledged to disrupt tomorrow's election by attacking polling stations, and cutting the throats or chopping off the fingers of anyone who votes.

That has raised fears that a low turnout, especially in the south, could encourage electoral fraud and undermine the legitimacy of an election seen as a test of international efforts to build democracy in Afghanistan.

But Afghan officials have been trying to negotiate truces with local Taliban commanders who may be reluctant to cause Afghan civilian casualties in their own areas.

The government has also ordered Western and domestic media to impose a blackout on coverage of violence during the poll to avoid scaring voters away.

International forces, meanwhile, have suspended offensive operations tomorrow and will not deploy any troops at polling stations so that they do not become a magnet for Taleban attacks. (ANI)

For Daily Alerts
Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Settings X
X