Smoke and flames light up from the police chief's office after a suicide car bombing in the southern city of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province on July 31, 2011. - AFP PhotoThis morning, a Taliban suicide bomber was able to navigate his car into close proximity of a police station in Lashkar Gah which is in Helmand province and when that car was detonated, 11 policemen were killed in the attack.
From the report at DAWN:
A suicide bomber struck Sunday at the gate of the police headquarters in Lashkar Gah in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 11 people in a city where Afghans have recently taken control of security.
The blast, which ripped a gaping hole in the station compound’s wall, also wounded as least 12 people, said Helmand provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi. He said the dead included 10 police officers and one child.
People at the site said they saw a police vehicle on fire at the gate. Ahmadi said a suicide bomber apparently drove a car between two police vehicles at the entrance and then set detonated the explosives.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack.
It has been less than two weeks since Lashkar Gah was formally handed over to Afghan control in the first stage of a plan to have all of Afghanistan under the oversight of Afghan security forces by the end of 2014. It is the capital city of a province that has been a stronghold for the insurgency and where US Marines have surged in over the past year to try to turn back the Taliban.
Obviously, the al Qaeda influence in these attacks by the Taliban is indisputable - the favorite tactic of al Qaeda has always been police headquarters and police recruiting stations in any locale that al Qaeda is involved in fighting. Now, we've heard so-called experts say that there are very few al Qaeda still in Afghanistan - first off, I dispute that but let's just say it is true...well, with the Taliban operating JUST LIKE al Qaeda what difference does it make?
If there are 500 al Qaeda in Afghanistan and 10,000 Taliban in Afghanistan but the 10,000 Taliban are operating under the same tactics as al Qaeda, aren't there 10,500 "al Qaeda" in Afghanistan?
Bomb kills 11 at police HQ in southern Afghanistan
KANDAHAR: A suicide bomber struck Sunday at the gate of the police headquarters in Lashkar Gah in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 11 people in a city where Afghans have recently taken control of security.
The blast, which ripped a gaping hole in the station compound’s wall, also wounded as least 12 people, said Helmand provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi. He said the dead included 10 police officers and one child.
People at the site said they saw a police vehicle on fire at the gate. Ahmadi said a suicide bomber apparently drove a car between two police vehicles at the entrance and then set detonated the explosives.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack.
It has been less than two weeks since Lashkar Gah was formally handed over to Afghan control in the first stage of a plan to have all of Afghanistan under the oversight of Afghan security forces by the end of 2014. It is the capital city of a province that has been a stronghold for the insurgency and where US Marines have surged in over the past year to try to turn back the Taliban.
The attack comes as Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tours Afghanistan for a second day. He has been meeting with military commanders and troops in the south, a region that has been rocked by violence and suicide attacks in recent weeks. Mullen visited a base outside the southern city of Kandahar on Sunday morning.
In the east, meanwhile, an international service member was killed in a pre-dawn bomb attack, according to a Nato forces statement.
The statement did not provide further details on Sunday’s attack, nor the nationality of the dead.
At least 48 international service members have been killed in Afghanistan in July, including the latest death.
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