GHAZNI: The Taliban killed at least 16 people at an Afghan police checkpoint yesterday and a suicide bomber struck an army bus in Kabul, highlighting a growing trend of strikes on Afghan rather than Nato targets.
Details of the pre-dawn attack on an Afghan Local Police (ALP) checkpoint in the eastern province of Ghazni were murky. Officials said they were investigating how the militants breached security.
ALP national commander General Alishah Ahmadzai said 10 policemen and “five or six local villagers” who took part in an uprising against the Taliban in the Andar district of Ghazni had been killed. “Initial information shows they were first poisoned and then shot, but we have to wait for the final report of our investigative team,” he said.
Provincial Governor Musa Khan Akbarzada gave a toll of 17, including seven civilians, and said a team had been sent to investigate the incident.
A spokesman for the Taliban, who are leading an 11-year fight against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, claimed responsibility for for both attacks.
The bomber struck the army bus on foot on a main road at around 7.10am (0240 GMT), said Kabul police spokesman Hashmatullah Stanikzai.
He said six members of the defence ministry and four civilians were wounded, mostly hit by shattered glass.
A witness told the TOLO TV channel that the bomber was carrying an umbrella to shield himself from snow.
“I was standing across the street when I saw a man holding an umbrella approach the army bus. He then slid under the bus. I thought he was the driver, but moments later the explosion happened,” he said.
Western officials say insurgents are shifting their strategy away from focusing on the US-led Nato combat mission, which is due to withdraw next year, to targeting Afghan forces preparing to take over.
Among 10 attacks recorded by AFP in Afghanistan so far this year, only one targeted Nato troops, on January 25, in the troubled eastern province of Kapisa. Five civilians were killed.
All others have targeted tribal elders, police or Afghan intelligence agents. “Since the start of the year, the objective has mainly been Afghans, even if Nato remains a target,” a Western security official said.
The Pentagon admitted that Nato’s International Security Assistance Force had wrongly reported a seven percent decline in Taliban attacks last year, saying the number was roughly the same as in 2011 at about 3,000.
“This is a regrettable error in our database systems that was discovered during a routine quality check. We are making the appropriate adjustments.”
AFP
