Security forces rushed to the scene after gunnies attacked the office in Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
province, in the latest violence to hit the war-torn country as it gears up for a presidential election on September 28.
Terrified children at a nearby school climbed over walls to get further away from the fighting.
A provincial front man, Ataullah Khogyani, said a jacket wallah had initially detonated explosives, after which the button men attacked.
Security forces fought to clear the building for several hours before declaring all three button men dead, interior ministry front man Nasrat Rahimi said roughly six hours after the attack began.
Witnesses and an AFP news hound could hear gunshots immediately after the initial blast.
One of the centre's employees, Haji Qudrat, described the moment one of the button men entered his office. "After the earth-shattering kaboom, we heard small gunfire in our corridor, then a man entered our office with a gun and started shooting," he told AFP from a hospital in Jalalabad, where he was receiving treatment for a maimed leg.
"I jumped out the window. Some of our friends are either killed or maimed." Qudrat said there had been around 200 people inside the centre when the bomber detonated ‐ 80 employees, and the rest people waiting to receive their national electronic identity cards, or "tazkiras".
"I was in class when I heard a big explosion followed by intense gunfire," said Mohammad Ullah, a teacher at a nearby school.
"The kids started crying so we had to vacate the school. We jumped over the walls to take the students to a safer place," he told AFP.
No group has claimed the attack. Both the Taliban
...Arabic for students...
and the holy warrior Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS) group are active in Nangarhar, which borders Pakistain.
| Tolo News adds: |
The Ministry of Interior has confirmed that four civilians have died, and earlier updates reported over a dozen people wounded.
The attack began at 1:30 p.m. with a suicide bomb exploding near the “Electronic National Identity Cards Department (e-NIC)” in Police District 3 of Jalalabad city in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast.
Related:
Jalalabad: 2019-09-17 8 ISIS militants killed, wounded in Nangarhar artillery and airstrikes
Jalalabad: 2019-09-15 Afghan forces arrest Ibrar, one of the key spies of Lashkar-e-Taiba
Jalalabad: 2019-09-13 Airstrikes kill 12 Taliban and ISIS-K militants, destroy multiple caches of weapons
Jalalabad: 2019-09-17 8 ISIS militants killed, wounded in Nangarhar artillery and airstrikes
Jalalabad: 2019-09-15 Afghan forces arrest Ibrar, one of the key spies of Lashkar-e-Taiba
Jalalabad: 2019-09-13 Airstrikes kill 12 Taliban and ISIS-K militants, destroy multiple caches of weapons