TEHRAN, Mar 06 - Militants in Afghanistan set off a suicide blast on Wednesday morning and stormed a construction company near the airport in Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province, killing at least 17 people, officials said.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The dawn assault triggered an hours-long gunbattle with local guards, drawing in U.S. forces to assist the Afghan troops in the shootout.
Among those killed were 16 employees of the Afghan construction company EBE and a military intelligence officer, said Attahullah Khogyani, the provincial governor's spokesman. He added that nine other people were wounded in the attack, which lasted more than five hours.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but both the Taliban and the Islamic State group are active in eastern Afghanistan, especially in Nangarhar.
Wednesday's attack began around 5 a.m. and five attackers were involved, Khogyani said. Two of them detonated their explosives, blowing themselves up, while the remaining three were killed in the shooting.
The attackers were on foot and after setting off a suicide blast at the company gates, the others stormed in, triggering a gunbattle that drew U.S. forces to the scene, according to Gen. Ghulam Sanayee Stanikzai, the provincial police chief.
"U.S. forces are supporting Afghan forces in securing the area now," Stanikzai later said.
As the attack unfolded, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani arrived for a visit to neighboring Kunar province to inaugurate an administrative health complex and to lay the cornerstone of a 200-bed hospital.
By 10:30 a.m., when the last of the attackers was killed, all was over and the Afghan forces proceeded with a clean-up operation, Khogyani said.
Source: AP
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