At least nine people died and 40 were wounded in a Taliban attack on a government base Monday, which the insurgents said they launched in response to President Ashraf Ghani’s order for troops to go back on the offensive against them.
KABUL, Afghanistan — At least nine people died and 40 were wounded in a Taliban attack on a government base Monday, which the insurgents said they launched in response to President Ashraf Ghani’s order for troops to go back on the offensive against them.
Taliban fighters blew up a stolen Humvee at around 5 a.m. inside the main compound of a base in Ghazni used by the country’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, said Wahidullah Jumazada, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
The explosion shattered windows more than a mile away in the city of Ghazni, about 100 miles southwest of Kabul, Jumazada said.
Nine people were killed, said Tariq Arian, spokesman for the Afghan interior minister, updating an earlier figure of seven killed.
The Taliban said on Twitter that it carried out the attack in response to Ghani‘s “war declaration” — a reference to his order last week for the military to resume offensive operations against the militant group.
