AFP

KANDAHAR

TWO bodyguards and two suicide attackers were killed in a gun battle inside the governor’s compound in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province on Saturday, an official said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their main target was the provincial Governor Tooryalai Weesa.

The insurgents somehow made it through the tight security at the compound with small pistols hidden in their sandals, Weesa said, and a gun fight ensued with guards that lasted for about 30 minutes.

“After killing two bodyguards, the attackers seized their rifles and opened fire on other bodyguards, injuring one,” the governor told, confirming that he was not hurt in the incident.

The attackers were eventually killed, Kandahar government spokesman Zalmay Ayobi told. Security forces also found a vehicle laden with explosives abandoned outside the compound.

Kandahar province is the heartland of hardline Taliban insurgents and has been one of the hardest hit in 10 years of war in which NATO troops are supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Condemning the attack, Weesa said the Taliban were resorting to “new ways and tactics to hurt the government and the people” but reiterated that “they will not succeed”.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until they were toppled in a 2001 US-led invasion for refusing to hand-over Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Since then, remnants of the regime have orchestrated an increasingly deadly insurgency focused on suicide attacks and roadside bombing that frequently miss their military targets and cause civilian casualties.

The attack on governor’s compound comes a day after an American soldier, two Afghan troops and an interpreter died when an Afghan soldier opened fire at them in the latest in a series of socalled green-on-blue attacks in Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar. On April 15, squads of suicide attackers took up positions in the nation’s capital Kabul, firing on embassies, government buildings and foreign military bases for 18 hours before they were all killed.

Afghan officials and US Ambassador in Kabul blamed the Pakistanis-based Haqqani Network, a close ally of the Taliban for the attacks on Kabul, considered to have been the biggest assault on the capital in 10 years of war.

Apart from Kabul, the eastern capitals of Paktia, Logar and Nangarhar provinces also came under attack, with a total of 51 people, including 36 militants, killed.