Source: DTN News / Int'l Media
(NSI News Source Info) KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - March 15, 2010: Thirty-five people were killed in an assault on Kandahar described by the Taliban as a pre-emptive
response to Western plans to eradicate them from the strategic city, officials said on Sunday.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Islamist group, said the bombings proved the insurgents were still able to operate despite the buildup of Afghan and international troops in the south of Afghanistan in preparation for a push into Kandahar province.
A separate, Taliban-linked website called the attacks a "warning" to Gen Stanley McChrystal. The top Nato general has said Kandahar province is the next target for coalition forces, who recently drove the insurgents from a key stronghold in neighbouring Helmand province.
"Gen McChrystal has said that soon they will start their operations, and now we have already started our operations," Mr Ahmadi said. "With all the preparations they have taken, still they are not able to stop us."
Saturday's explosions - there were at least five blasts, four of them suicide attacks - killed at least 35 people.
Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of the province, said he had asked the central government in Kabul for more Afghan troops to protect the city in the run-up to the expected offensive in the province, which is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. He also said he wants to coordinate with Nato forces to improve security.
Residents say Taliban militants can operate with little restraint in Kandahar, the largest city in southern Afghanistan and capital of the province that shares its name.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks, which hit the city's prison, police headquarters, a wedding hall next door and other areas on roads leading to the prison.
The main target was the prison, where investigators have found eight suicide vests, three rockets and AK-47 ammunition, police said.
The assault mirrored a 2008 suicide bombing at the Kandahar prison gates that freed hundreds of prisoners, many of them suspected insurgents. No inmates escaped this time from the lockup, which Canadian troops reinforced with cement block after the 2008 attack.
Among the dead were 13 policemen and 22 civilians, including six women and three children, the interior ministry said. Most of the casualties occurred at the police headquarters and at the wedding celebration in a hall next door.
Another 57 people were wounded, including 17 policemen, and 42 homes were damaged, the ministry said.
Kandahar city, population 800,000, was the seat of government for the Taliban when it ruled Afghanistan, imposing its vision of Islamic theocracy for five years before being toppled by US-backed forces in 2001.
The offensive that US, Nato and Afghan forces are planning in Kandahar later this year is a follow-up to the ongoing military operation in Helmand province's Marjah district.
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