The death toll from two days of heavy fighting between Afghan security forces and Taliban militants in the southern city of Kandahar has risen to 23.The fighting broke out after the Taliban unleashed a major assault on government buildings. Reports say militants have also entered an Afghan army base and a school.
Kandahar is the main city of Kandahar province, where US-led multinational forces and Afghan troops are engaged in a major offensive against the Taliban.
The assault was launched from a nearby shopping mall, where the militants ordered shopkeepers to leave shortly before the shooting began.
Nearly 20 loud explosions and an exchange of gunfire between militants and security forces were also reported.
Officials say Afghan security forces have killed at least two militants in ongoing pitched battles. Several civilians were injured in the assaults. The National Security Office and Law Enforcement Agency have also come under attack.
Taliban claim
The Taliban said on Saturday that a large number of its fighters flooded into Kandahar city with the aim of targeting any building used by the government.
“Our attack was against every place where government officials or security forces are found,” Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a spokesperson for the Taliban, told the Associated Press news agency over the telephone.
Taliban spokesman released a statement claiming the responsibility, “As many as 113 puppets including soldiers of NANA police force and other government employees and officials along with 3 NATO invaders were killed in different parts of Kandahar in Saturday’s operation conducted amid -Operation Badar’ as part of spring offensives launched on May 01, 2011.”
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the chairman of the Kandahar provincial council, told Al Jazeera that authorities were attempting to bring the situation under control, but that Taliban fighters were still hiding at some of the attack sites.
Shopkeepers throughout the city closed down their stores and the streets emptied of people and cars.
Police in Kandahar blocked journalists from getting near the buildings under assault and military helicopters hovered overhead.
The violence comes one week after Taliban militants warned of a fresh wave of attacks against foreign troops, Afghan security forces and government officials.
Bin Laden connection
The Kandahar assault is the latest in an ongoing series of attacks by the Taliban on prominent government installations.
A statement from the office of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, on Saturday said the attacks were revenge for the recent killing of al-Qaeda’s leader by US forces.
The Taliban issued a statement on Friday saying that the killing would boost the morale of the group, and threatening that it would show its strength.
“The martyrdom of Sheik Osama bin Laden will give a new impetus to the current jihad against the invaders,” the Taliban said.
“The forthcoming time will prove this both for the friends and the foes.”
However, in his statement to AP on Saturday, Ahmadi, the Taliban spokesman, said the Kandahar assault was not a revenge attack for bin Laden’s death but a plot that had been in the works for months.
“This operation has been planned for a long time, for the past month or two,” he said.
Last week, the Taliban announced the start of its “spring offensive” against both international forces and the Afghan government.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
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