Kandahar: Insurgents armed with guns and explosives entered a police station in Afghanistan's southern city of Lashkar Gar on Sunday after a suicide bomber detonated explosives at the gate of the compound allowing the others to gain entry, a senior policeman said.
Nabi Jan Malakhail, the police chief of Helmand province, said at least two insurgents were inside the police station, fighting with police who had the building surrounded.
"They haven't been able to escape," he said. Two policemen and one civilian had been wounded in the firefight, he said.
Helmand province is a stronghold of the Taliban, who have been fighting the Kabul government for more than a decade. The group controls much of the poppy crop that is grown in the province and is the source of most of the world's heroin.
For more than two months, Afghan security forces have been fighting to dislodge the insurgents from Helmand, ahead of the warmer weather when the Taliban send seasoned fighters across the mountainous border from Pakistan for what it calls its "summer offensive."
So far, the group has not declared the beginning of the fighting season, but recent attacks indicate that the annual offensive has begun.
Today, a suicide bomber on an explosives-laden motorbike blew himself up outside a bank in the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing at least 35 people and wounding around 125, authorities said.
The attack bore the hallmarks of the Taliban, who have long been active in Nangarhar province, where Jalalabad is the capital. President Ashraf Ghani, however, attributed the attack to the Islamic State group, though he did not reveal the source of his information.
