Afghan governor’s office struck by suicide bomber

Eight people killed and four wounded in attack, while mortar blasts country’s largest police training facility A suicide bomber has killed eight people and wounded four in an attack on a governor’s office in north-east Afghanistan, while a mortar targeted a building where Nato and Afghan officials were inaugurating the country’s largest police training facility in central Afghanistan. The two attacks occurred at about the same time. Provincial spokesman Halim Ayar said the bomber blew himself up about 200 metres from the office of the governor, Azizul Rahman Tawab, in the north-east Kapisa province. He said four of the dead were police officers and four were civilians. All the wounded were civilians, he added. The interior ministry said: “The leadership of Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan condemns this inhumane and cowardly suicide attack. Such attacks will never weaken the determination of the Afghan National Police.” Meanwhile, in central Wardak province, a mortar landed next to a large building where Afghan ministers and Nato officials were celebrating the opening of the flagship centre of a multibillion dollar Nato programme to train Afghan national security forces before the planned withdrawal of US-led coalition forces at the end of 2014. Afghanistan’s second vice-president, Mohammed Karim Khalili, and interior minister Bismullah Khan Mohammadi were in attendance when the blast shook the building and more than 500 police recruits ducked for cover. Gunshots rang out after the attack. Bodyguards rushed Afghan and Nato officials into a hardened shelter before evacuating them on helicopters. The area has seen increasing attacks by insurgents as the Taliban press a spring campaign against Afghan and Nato forces. It was unclear if Khalili, who was born in Wardak, was the intended target of the attack, but the mortar seemed to have been aimed at the building where he had just finished delivering his speech. The $106m (£65m) facility houses 725 recruits but will expand to 3,000, making it the largest of its kind in the country. A mostly US-funded programme has been spending about $10bn a year in 2010 and 2011 to train, equip and build infrastructure for a range of Afghan forces, including police, soldiers and an air force. That programme calls for increasing the number of Afghan police to 134,000 by October, from the 81,509 of two years ago. US Major General James Mallory told the Associated Press that Nato would be able to properly train and support an estimated 157,000 police officers before the coalition’s planned withdrawal in 2014. However, he acknowledged there would be long-term legacy costs that the international community would need to bear for the country as it struggles economically, especially as 86% of incoming recruits cannot read or write. “We’re dealing with a lost generation,” Mallory said. He spoke just before the mortar attack. Afghanistan Taliban Nato US military United States US foreign policy guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 15, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.