The hourslong raid, which killed eight people, targeted a top military official’s home near Kabul’s fortified green zone.
The Taliban claimed responsibility on Wednesday for an attack on the home of a top military official in Kabul that killed eight people, highlighting the insurgents’ ability to strike in the heart of the Afghan capital as they continue their sweeping military campaign. The raid began around 8 p.m. on Tuesday with a car bomb that detonated outside the home of Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, the acting defense minister. For several hours afterward, other blasts and sporadic gunfire could be heard in the center of the city after gunmen stormed the building and security forces fought to rescue the roughly 80 people trapped inside. The complex attack — the largest the Taliban have carried out in the city in nearly a year — penetrated a neighborhood that is home to many high-ranking Afghan officials and close to Kabul’s heavily fortified green zone. It comes as the insurgents push the front lines of their military campaign from rural areas deep into provincial capitals in the south and west of Afghanistan. A Taliban spokesman described the raid in Kabul as “the beginning of retaliatory attacks,” suggesting that the insurgents planned to target Afghan military officials and the small contingent of foreign troops that remain in the country to protect diplomats and Kabul’s international airport after the withdrawal of U.
