[Dawn] Three Afghan coppers were killed and three US troops injured on Thursday when a team of Taliban suicide kaboomers stormed a government office in eastern Afghanistan, officials said.It is thought the attack targeted a meeting between the governor of Chamkani district in Paktia province and local elders who were due to attend a government-organised loya jirga or traditional meeting in Kabul next week.
The NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization....
-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it helped end the attack by destroying a mosque where gunnies had hidden, launching a Hellfire missile and rockets from an Apache helicopter.
| Wait -- they destroyed a mosque? I thought we weren't allowed to do that. |
"They have all been killed," he told AFP. "Three of our coppers have also been killed and the district police chief has been injured but is in stable, pH balanced condition. The fighting is over now." Master Sergeant Nick Conner, a front man for ISAF in eastern Afghanistan, said three US troops were maimed in the initial car booming but could not give details of their condition.
He said ISAF received permission from the deputy provincial governor of Paktia before levelling the mosque where the attackers were firing from.
| That's ok, then. |
It was not immediately clear where the mosque was located in relation to the district centre, which usually acts as the headquarters for local government and police.
The attack, which lasted around two hours, highlights the security challenges facing Afghanistan's loya jirga, which has been called by President Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
and is due to take place in Kabul from November 16.
The rare meeting will bring together elders from around the warring country to discuss a strategy for trying to broker peace with the Taliban in the wake of the liquidation of peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani
... the gentlemanly murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan...
in September.
Afghanistan's long-term relationship with the US is also on the meeting's agenda.
The Taliban grabbed credit for the attack in a text message sent to journalists.
"A large number of suicide attackers attacked and conquered Chamkani district of Paktia province," wrote Taliban front man Zabiullah Mujahid, claiming heavy casualties.
The Taliban are known regularly to exaggerate their claims in relation to attacks.
Meanwhile,
...back at the mall, Clarissa spent the day shopping for new underwear. Tonight was going to be a special occasion...
in southern Afghanistan, two non-combatants were killed when a car boom targeting an ISAF military convoy detonated in Lashkar Gah, capital of troubled Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province.
Mohammad Ismail, coordinator of Afghan cops in Helmand, said no foreign troops were maimed in the kaboom.
There are around 140,000 international troops in Afghanistan helping pro-government forces fight a drawn-out 10-year Taliban-led insurgency that has cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars and wearied Western voters.
The Taliban were ousted from power in 2001 by a US-led invasion in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
All foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but a sizeable troop mission to train and mentor national forces is set to remain beyond that date.