35 killed in Taliban assault

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 yesterday.

A series of massive explosions rocked the southern city late Saturday in what appeared one of the biggest coordinated assaults by the militants since their insurgency began more than eight years ago.

The governor of Kandahar province said he had requested more troops to help secure the city from further attacks by the Taliban, who regard it as their spiritual centre.

Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashery said the attackers aimed to blow open Kandahar's prison and free its inmates, including militants.

He said the dead comprised 13 police officers and 22 civilians, and that another 57 people were injured. The attack came as tens of thousands of extra troops are arriving in Afghanistan as part of a new counter-insurgency strategy aimed at concluding the US-led war on the Taliban.

Among the injured were 40 civilians - including six women and three children - and 17 police officers. Forty-two houses close to the city's prison and its police headquarters were destroyed or badly damaged.

"Initial information shows that after the prison attack the enemy attacked locations and routes that end up at or are en route to the prison in an effort to prevent police from going and securing the prison," Mr Bashery said.

The city was hit by five blasts at 8 p.m. (1530 GMT) on Saturday. The first, caused by a huge suicide car bomb, occurred outside the prison and was followed by a similar blast outside provincial police headquarters. Three other explosions were probably also suicide attacks, Mr Bashery said.

"Most of the police casualties were outside the police headquarters where officers had stopped and surrounded the vehicle laden with explosives as it detonated," he said.

Early yesterday police seized eight explosive-packed suicide vests and three rockets from a house near the prison. The Taliban plan appeared to be to first break into the prison, then use suicide vests and rockets to burst open cells and free prisoners, Mr Bashery said.

A Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said the attack was a response to comments by the commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan that Kandahar would be targeted in military efforts to eradicate the Taliban. Kandahar was the Taliban's base during their rule of the country, which ended with the US-led invasion in 2001.