PUL-I-ALAM - A suicide car bomber killed at least 11 members of the security forces and wounded more than 20 civilians near a police checkpoint in eastern Logar province in Afghanistan on Saturday, local officials said.
“The suicide bomber detonated his car near a residential area in Azra district of Logar, killing four army soldiers and seven local policemen,” Din Mohammad Darwish a spokesman for Logar’s governor said. The Taliban claimed responsibility in an email statement sent to the media.
“A suicide bomber attacked a joint post of Afghan local police forces and army soldiers in Azra district of Logar province,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid was quoted as saying.
The Taliban, who often exaggerate the death tolls in their attacks, claimed three soldiers and 10 police were killed.Violence has increased in Afghanistan over the past year as foreign troops prepare to withdraw by the end of 2014.
The government is reluctant to release figures on casualties, but more than 4,000 police and soldiers were killed fighting Taliban insurgents in 2013 and this year’s toll is expected to be higher. Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani, who took office about a month ago after months of destabilising deadlock over who won the election, said he hoped to achieve peace with the Taliban. “Peace is not easy but is a mandatory,” Ashraf Ghani told a news conference in Kabul on Saturday, two hours after the attack. “If it was easy then it could be achieved during the past years.”
The militants, whose government was toppled by a US-led invasion in 2001, have intensified their attacks all around the country in recent months as NATO combat forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of the year.
On October 14, six Afghan policemen were killed in a Taliban attack in Logar.
The insurgents have also been making concerted pushes in the northern provinces of Kunduz and Faryab, and in northeastern Badakhshan province, where 17 police were missing after the Taliban made a new push to seize territory last week.
The US military estimated in October that 7,000-9,000 Afghan police or troops had been killed or wounded so far this year.
New Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has signed a deal with the United States and NATO to allow 12,500 foreign troops, including 9,800 Americans to stay behind in 2015 to carry out military training after the alliance’s combat mission ends.