A group of at least five insurgents launched a pre-dawn raid Monday on an Afghan army unit near a military academy in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, killing two soldiers and wounding ten more.
“The attack is against an army unit providing security for the academy and not the academy itself,” said Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan defense ministry.
Witnesses say the fighting near the Marshal Fahim National Defense University continued after daybreak.
Waziri said the attack began with a suicide bomber and that two insurgents were killed in the ensuing gunbattle. One attacker was arrested. He added that soldiers are looking for another possible suspect.
Reuters reports that the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Kabul has been hit with several insurgent attacks recently.
Sunday, Afghanistan held a national day of mourning, the day after insurgents used an explosives-laden ambulance to carry out a deadly suicide attack outside a government building in Kabul.
Officials said Sunday the death toll has risen to 103 people, while 235 were wounded in the assault. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak, while releasing the latest casualty figures at a news conference in Kabul,said “many policemen” were among the dead. But he gave no figures and said 30 police officers were also among those wounded.
Masoom Stanekzai, the head of the Afghan intelligence agency, told reporters authorities have arrested four people in connection with Saturday’s bombing and an investigation is still ongoing.
He dismissed criticism of his National Directorate of Security, or NDS and other Afghan security institutions for their failure to prevent repeated militant attacks in Kabul and elsewhere in the country.
Earlier this month, five heavily armed Taliban suicide bombers stormed Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel in a highly secured part of the city. That attack killed at least 22 people, including 14 foreigners. At least four Americans were among the dead.
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