Five dead, many wounded in attack on Afghan police base

KHOST: An hours-long attack on an Afghan police special forces base involving car bombs and an intense firefight killed five policemen and wounded dozens of people, officials said Tuesday, as violence continued to surge in the war-weary country.

Three suicide bombers detonated their explosives-loaded vehicles targeting the base in the city of Khost near the Pakistan border, Khost police chief Ghulam Daud Tarakhil told AFP, before other gunmen tried to storm the compound.

One suicide bomber detonated his vehicle at the gates of the base early in the morning, while two others blew up their vehicles later during the gun battle between security forces and gunmen, he said. A fierce firefight that lasted for almost nine hours between the militants and security forces ended with the killing of seven other militants, Tarakhil said.

Afghanistan’s interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian confirmed that the gun battle had now ended. The assault left five policemen dead and wounded 33 other people, including nine civilians, Tarakhil added.

Khost, a restive province, is home to active Taliban insurgents and also Al-Qaeda fighters, officials say. Further north, three civilians were killed and 10 others were wounded in a separate

attack Tuesday when a "sticky bomb" attached to a car exploded near Kabul airport, police spokesman Ferdaws Faramuz said in a statement.