By DPA,
Kabul: Seven Taliban fighters were killed and five people were wounded when a group of militants, wearing suicide vests and carrying automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, attacked government buildings in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday.
Meanwhile, two NATO troops and several insurgents were killed in separate incidents of gun-battle, airstrike and roadside blasts elsewhere in the country.
The attack in Khost city, the capital for the province of the same name, began Saturday afternoon when a group of fighters attacked the main police station and the surrounding government buildings, an interior ministry statement said.
Six bombers were killed by security forces in gun-battle before they could detonate their vests, while the seventh one exploded his explosive-laden vehicle near a police station, killing himself and wounding two policemen.
Earlier a defence ministry spokesman had said that three bombers had detonated their vests in front of a hospital, an attorney’s office and the provincial court building.
Kochai Naseri, spokesman for the provincial governor, gave the total number of wounded as five, including three Afghan policemen and two civilians, one a 10-year-old girl.
The incidents took place at the same time as Ramazan Bashardost, one of the 41 candidates contesting the presidential election Aug 20, was campaigning in the city.
A police official said Bashardost was not harmed and had been escorted by security forces to a safer location.
Saturday’s attack in Khost came less than a week after eight Taliban fighters, wearing suicide belts, attacked government buildings in Gardez and Jalalabad in the same eastern region. The simultaneous attacks left six people dead.
In May, six people were killed when Taliban militants launched simultaneous attacks on government building in Khost city.
Meanwhile, a soldier serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday, the military alliance said in a statement, without disclosing a name or nationality.
Another NATO soldier and several Taliban militants were killed in clash and airstrike in eastern Afghanistan on Friday afternoon, the US military statement said.
The soldier, whose nationality was not given, was killed by insurgents when combined Afghan and NATO forces were approaching a house where the militants were believed to be staying, it said.
A NATO aircraft dropped three bombs on the militants’ position, killing “several insurgents,” it added.