News / Afghanistan

Militants attack TV, radio building in Afghanistan

Wednesday, 17 May 2017 9:08 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 17 May 2017 10:23 AM ]

Afghan security forces arrive at the site on an attack on the state-run radio and television building in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)

Afghan security forces have engaged three gunmen who have attacked a state radio and television building in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province.

The gunmen began the Wednesday attack by detonating a bomb and managed to enter the state-run radio and television building in the provincial capital Jalalabad.

The building is close to the governor’s compound and a police station.

Heavy gunfire erupted between the security forces and the assailants, while some journalists and staff were trapped in the building, according to a photographer, who said he fled the building as soon as the gunfight started.

Government spokesman Attaullah Khogyani said there were three assailants. “Two of them have been killed and one is still resisting,” he said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties on the side of staff and security forces, according to Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish.

Afghan security forces search people at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Jalalabad, April 28, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

The Takfiri Daesh terror group, which is active in the mountainous eastern province, claimed responsibility for the assault.

Elsewhere in the country, three civilians were killed in separate bomb attacks, officials said on Wednesday.

Two civilians were killed and two others were wounded in a bomb blast late Tuesday in the Nijrab district in Kapisa Province. Another civilian was also killed and 10 others were wounded, including three policemen, in twin bomb blasts in the southern Kandahar Province.

Those attacks have not been claimed by any group, either.

The Taliban have stepped up their attacks with the start of spring. They have been engaging in militancy since a US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, which toppled a government run by them.

Daesh has gained a foothold in Afghanistan more recently.

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