Khost (Afghanistan) Oct 17 (AFP) The death toll in anongoing suicide and gun attack on a police training centre ina southeast Afghan city has risen to 32 with more than 200wounded, a hospital official said today.
"The hospital is overwhelmed and we call on people todonate blood," said Shir Mohammad Karimi, deputy healthdirector in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province.
A separate attack in a neighbouring province today left15 security forces dead and 12 wounded, as militants step uptheir offensives following a ratcheting up in US airstrikes ina war-weary country marking 16 years of conflict this month.
The victims of the ongoing Gardez attack, which wasclaimed by the Taliban in a tweet, include women, students andpolice, officials told AFP.
"At first a suicide bomber detonated a car filled withexplosives near the training centre, making way for a numberof attackers to start their assault," the interior ministrysaid in a statement.
A battle between the attackers, armed with guns andsuicide vests, and security forces is under way inside thecentre which is located near the Paktia police headquarters,it said.
Fighting has been going on for more than four hours.
A local official said two car bombs went off near thecompound that also houses the provincial headquarters of thenational police, border police and Afghan National Army.
"A group of gunmen have entered the compound and fightingis ongoing," Allah Mir Bahram, a member of the Paktiaprovincial council, told AFP.
Photos posted on Twitter purportedly show two largeplumes of smoke rising above the city, suggesting two bombswere detonated in the assault.
Paktia borders Pakistan's militancy-plagued tribal areaswhere the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network has a presence.
The attack came hours after a US drone strike inPakistan's Kurram tribal district, part of which bordersPaktia, killed at least 26 Haqqani militants, officials havesaid.
Local officials told AFP that drones were still flyingabove Kurram after the attack, the deadliest targetingmilitants in the Pakistani tribal region this year.
In Kurram last week the Pakistani military rescued a US-Canadian family who had been abducted by militants inAfghanistan in 2012. US President Donald Trump has said theywere being held by the Haqqani network.
The extremist group has been blamed for carrying outspectacular attacks across Afghanistan since the US-ledinvasion in 2001 and is known for its frequent use of suicidebombers.
It was blamed for the truck bomb deep in the heart of theAfghan capital Kabul in May that killed around 150 people.
The Haqqanis have also been accused of assassinating topAfghan officials and holding kidnapped Westerners for ransom.
These include the recently rescued hostages CanadianJoshua Boyle, his American wife Caitlan Coleman, and theirthree children - all born in captivity - as well as US soldierBowe Bergdahl, who was released in 2014.
Militants also targeted security forces in Ghazni ontoday, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Gardez, officialsthere said. That attack, which has ended, followed the samepattern, with "terrorists" detonating an explosives-ladenHumvee vehicle near a police headquarters and attackersstorming the building, Haref Noori, the Ghazni governor'sspokesman, told AFP.
Fifteen security forces were killed and 12 wounded,Ghazni police chief Mohammad Zaman told AFP, adding "dozens ofTaliban" also died.
The latest attacks come as four-way talks betweenAfghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China were heldMonday in Oman with the aim of ending the Taliban's 16-yearinsurgency. (AFP)MRJ.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.