The Taliban set off a car bomb at a provincial Afghan intelligence complex before storming the facility in a bloody gun battle that lasted hours.
The attack happened on Monday at the provincial headquarters of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security in Aybak, a city in northern Afghanistan and the capital of Samangan Province. The explosion allowed Taliban militants to enter the compound and kill 11 officers with the intelligence agency, Sefatullah Samangani, the province’s deputy governor, told the New York Times.
Samangani said that in addition to the 11 officers, 63 other people, primarily civilians, were wounded in the attack.
“The blast was so strong that it broke people’s windows 3 kilometers away,” Samangani recounted. “The building of the intelligence agency and the municipality building are not usable anymore.”
The attack comes as the Afghan government struggles with stalled peace talks with the Taliban. The terrorist group has continued to attack Afghan targets despite signing a peace deal with the United States in February with the intention of a U.S. troop withdrawal. There are also ongoing fears that after the U.S. fully withdraws, the Taliban might try to regain control of the country.
As part of the peace deal, the treaty called for the Afghan government to release 5,000 militants in exchange for 1,000 Afghan forces. Although Afghanistan’s government initially pushed back on the prisoner swap, it has since released some 4,000 fighters. The county has said, however, that it doesn’t plan to release more than 500 militants that the Taliban has requested back given the gravity of the crimes they have been accused of and the danger they pose to Afghan society.
“Turning to violence and killing people for leverage in negotiations is the worst approach that, unfortunately, the Taliban have taken up,” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement.
