KABUL: The Afghan National Army (ANA) defused 21 Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in restive southern Kandahar province on Friday, the country’s Ministry of Defense said.
“The engineering teams of ANA discovered and defused 21 IEDs in Kandahar. The move by army has helped rescue tens of lives and prevent the destruction of hundreds of kilometers of roads in Kandahar province, 450 km south of Afghan capital, Kabul,” the ministry in a statement.
In the meantime, the Afghan National Police (ANP) confiscated a SUV-type vehicle in Police District 15 of Kabul, the capital police confirmed in a statement. “A vehicle packed with amount of explosives, 400 rounds of gun bullets, 107 different bomb and landmine fuses, as well as several hand-grenades, was stopped by police in the Emirate Township area of Kabul Police District 15 early Saturday morning,” the statement added. No arrest was made when the vehicle was unloaded, the statement said. Earlier in the day, the ANP also defused a sticky IED attached to a taxi in Paghman district, on western outskirts of Kabul.
Meanwhile, At least 15 people were killed and 42 others wounded in a Taliban suicide car bombing outside a district office in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province on Saturday, a local government spokesman said.
“The incident occurred when a terrorist detonated a mini-truck outside the intelligence agency office, near the district main office in Shinwar district at midday. The blast also caused destruction,” spokesman Attahullah Khogiani told media. Among the killed were one soldier and 14 civilians, including a woman and four children, he said. “Those among the wounded were four soldiers. The wounded were shifted to hospitals in Shinwar and provincial capital Jalalabad city. Unfortunately some of the wounded remained in critical condition,” he added. “After the massive blast, armed militants tried to enter the offices and take control of the buildings, but the security forces killed all attackers before they found their ways inside,” Khogiani said. The number of the assailants was not immediately known, however, a security official in the district told media that five militants were involved in the attack in the region, 120 km east of Afghanistan’s capital Kabul.–Agencies
