News / Afghanistan

6 killed in Taliban attack in Afghanistan's Ghazni

Wednesday, 01 June 2016 12:04 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 01 June 2016 12:04 PM ]

Afghan security personnel stand alert at the entrance to a provincial court in Ghazni on June 1, 2016, after a group of Taliban gunmen targeted the building. (AFP photo)

A fresh attack by the Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan has killed six people as the militants step up their annual spring offensive after naming a new leader.

Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said Wednesday that five civilians and a policeman were killed in the attack carried out by Taliban gunmen at a court building in the Ghazni, the capital of the province by the same name.

Sources in the office of the provincial governor said four Taliban militants were involved in the attack which began by an explosion at the court’s entrance. Security forces then rushed to the scene and killed the three other attackers after a 30-minute siege.

Jawed Salangi, spokesman for Ghazni’s governor, said the toll could have risen if the militants had managed to detonate an explosives-packed vehicle which was parked near the courthouse. He said police forces were attempting to defuse the vehicle.

Other officials said over a dozen civilians, including the chief judge of the court, were also wounded in the incident.

Taliban claimed the attack in a statement. The group did not mention, however, the fate of dozens of people kidnapped on Tuesday in the northern province of Kunduz. The attack, which saw the militants offloading people from four buses on the road, left more than a dozen killed.

The intensified attacks by the Taliban comes more than a month after the group began its annual spring offensive. The militants have also named a new leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, after the news broke of the killing of Mullah Mansour in a US drone strike in Pakistan.

Estimates show that about 200,000 people have been killed in less than three decades of Taliban militancy in Afghanistan. The government in Kabul has undertaken a series of initiatives for peace with the group, although fighting continues unabated across the country.

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