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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
December 18, 2017

Heavily armed militants attacked an Afghan intelligence agency facility in Kabul Monday, sparking fierce clashes with security forces.

Afghan officials said several assailants wearing police uniforms and led by a car bomber stormed and occupied a partially constructed building before firing rockets at the nearby training center of the National Directorate of Security, or NDS.

Afghan special forces swiftly arrived, encircled the building and killed all the attackers, ending the siege that lasted several hours. Residents in nearby areas reported hearing several back-to-back explosions from the scene of the fighting.

An interior ministry spokesman told VOA three men were involved in the attack on NDS training center. He confirmed at least one member of the police was wounded during the gunfight, though security sources said several NDS operatives were also among those injured.

The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for plotting the attack against the NDS facility in the Afghan capital.

The group has taken credit for a number attacks in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan in recent months. IS militants have lately expanded their extremist activities to other Afghan regions from its strongholds in eastern Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Afghan officials in the western province of Badghis have confirmed that Taliban insurgents ambushed a security convoy early Monday morning and killed the police commander of the remote Aab Kamari district.

The slain Abdul Rasoul and his men were ambushed while they were on their way reportedly to help security forces at an outpost under attack from the Taliban.

Monday’s violence came a day after insurgents assaulted security posts in the southern province of Helmand, killing at least 14 Afghan police personnel.