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Afghan gov’t wants more troops after Kandahar attack
Residents say Taliban militants can operate in Kandahar with little restraint. “They can do what they intend and want, and the government can’t control the situation,” said Javed Ahmad, 40, of Kandahar. “We don’t feel secure in the presence of all the forces in Afghanistan, and it’s terrible for us to live in this kind of situation. We don’t feel safe even at home, and we can’t walk around.”
At least 35 people were killed in Saturday night’s attacks, according to the Ministry of Interior. Gov. Tooryalai Wesa said the blasts included two car bombs, six suicide attackers on motorbikes and bicycles, and homemade bombs. The attackers targeted the city’s prison, police headquarters, a wedding hall next door and other areas on roads leading to the prison.
Wesa told reporters that he had asked the central government in Kabul for more Afghan troops to protect the city in the run-up to the expected offensive in Kandahar province, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. He also said he wants to coordinate with NATO forces to improve security.
Karzai condemns attacks
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks, and Ministry of Interior spokesman Zemeri Bashary told reporters on Sunday that the government was considering Wesa’s request for additional forces.
The main target of the attacks was the prison, where investigators have found eight suicide vests, three rockets and AK-47 ammunition, police said. Bashary told reporters the attackers were trying to free prisoners and block security forces from responding, “but they failed in their mission.”
“They were trying to open the jail, that is why they attacked cleverly in different parts of the city,” said Kandahar provincial police chief Gen. Sardar Mohammad Zazi.
The assault mirrored a 2008 suicide bombing at the Kandahar prison gates that freed hundreds of prisoners, many of them suspected insurgents. No inmates escaped this time from the lockup, which Canadian troops reinforced with cement block after the 2008 attack. Among the dead were 13 policemen and 22 civilians, including six women and three children, the interior ministry said. Most of the casualties occurred at the police headquarters and at the wedding celebration in a hall next door.
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