KABUL, Afghanistan — Islamic State militants attacked Afghan soldiersguarding a military academy in the capital of Kabul on Monday, killing atleast 11 troops and wounding 16.
The attack was the latest in a wave of relentless violence in Kabul thismonth unleashed by the Taliban and the rival Islamic State group that haskilled scores and left hundreds wounded.
Monday’s attack started around 4 a.m., witnesses said, and fightingcontinued long after daybreak.
A suicide bomber first struck the military unit responsible for providingsecurity for the academy, followed by a gunbattle with the troops, saidDawlat Waziri, spokesman for the Afghan defense ministry.
At least five insurgents were involved in the morning assault, according toWaziri. Two of the attackers were killed in the gunbattle, two detonatedtheir suicide vests and one was arrested by the troops, he said.
All roads leading to the military academy were blocked by police, whichonly allowed ambulances access to the site to transfer the wounded tohospitals.
After the gunbattle ended, the security forces resumed control of the area.They also confiscated one suicide vest, an AK-47 and some ammunition,Waziri said.
Waziri earlier said that five soldiers were killed but later raised thedeath toll to 11. He insisted, however that “the attack was against an armyunit providing security for the academy and not the academy itself.”
Afzal Aman, commander of the city’s military garrison, confirmed the attackin the area of the Marshal Fahim academy. Hashmat Faqeri, a resident nearthe site, told The Associated Press he heard sounds of explosions and agunbattle.
Hours later, the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, known asKhorasan Province, posted its claim of responsibility on the website of itsmedia arm, the Aamaq news agency, saying its fighters targeted the“military academy in Kabul.”
Neighboring Pakistan condemned Monday’s attack. Islamabad said it“reiterates its strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms andmanifestations, especially the series of heinous attacks within the lastweek in Afghanistan.”
The academy, known as Marshal Fahim National Defense University located onthe edge of Kabul at the Camp Qargha military base, is sometimes alsocalled “Sandhurst in the Sand” — a reference to the British academy. Namedafter Mohammed Fahim, the country’s late vice-president and a militarycommander of the Northern Alliance that fought the Taliban, the academy wasinaugurated in 2013 after British forces oversaw building the officers’school and its training program.
The academy was also the site where the highest-ranking U.S. militaryofficer to be lost in the Afghan and Iraqi wars was killed in August 2014.Army Maj Gen. Harold J. Greene, then deputy commander of the transitionforce in the country, was shot and killed by an Afghan soldiers in aso-called “insider attack” that was later claimed by the Taliban.
The same academy was also attacked in October last year by a suicide bomberwho killed 15 officers. The attacker was on foot and detonated his suicidevest as the on-duty officers were leaving the facility, heading home in theevening. That attack was also claimed by the Taliban.
Both the Taliban and IS have stepped up attacks in recent months in Kabuland elsewhere across Afghanistan, including massive bombings staged bymilitants determined to inflict maximum casualties, instill terror in thepopulation and undermine confidence in Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’sgovernment and the country’s security forces.
On Saturday, a Taliban attacker drove an ambulance filled with explosivesinto the heart of the city, killing at least 103 people and wounding asmany as 235.
Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak said Sunday that the investigation intothe attack indicated that a second ambulance was also involved but had leftthe area, indicating some would-be attackers may have escaped.
The Taliban claimed the ambulance attack, as well as an attack a weekearlier in which militants stormed a hilltop hotel in Kabul, theIntercontinental, killing 22 people, including 14 foreigners, and settingoff a 13-hour battle with security forces.
Masoom Stanekzai, the head of Afghanistan’s intelligence service, said fivesuspects have been arrested for their involvement in the hotel attack. Asixth suspect had fled the country, he said.
He also said that four people have been arrested in connection withSaturday’s ambulance attack.
The recent brutal attacks have underscored the weaknesses of Afghansecurity forces, more than 16 years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled theTaliban, and raise questions about President Donald Trump’s strategy forwinning America’s longest war.
The Taliban have been waging an insurgency since they were driven frompower by U.S. and Afghan forces after the Sept. 11 attacks. In recentyears, they have seized districts across the country and carried outnear-daily attacks, mainly targeting Afghan security forces and theU.S.-backed government.
The Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan emerged in 2014, as the U.S. andNATO were winding down their combat mission and around the time that ISdeclared its self-styled Islamic caliphate, headquartered in Syria andIraq. Its followers have clashed with both Afghan forces and the Taliban. -Agencies