Taliban fighters killed in attack on Nato HQ

It was one of three attacks on state facilities by insurgents around the country. Another six militants wearing suicide bomb vests tried to storm the provincial council building in the capital of southern Zabul province, while three attempted to attack a district police headquarters just outside Kabul.

They wounded 18 people, including three police officers, when they detonated a car bomb outside the building in the city of Qalat, but security forces shot and killed them before they managed to enter.

On the outskirts of Kabul, police killed one attacker and arrested two others who tried to storm the headquarters building in the Surobi district.

In addition, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pass tribal area yesterday a Pakistani official said a rocket attack targeting Nato supply trucks had killed several people.

In Kabul, it was the third time in a month that insurgents had launched a major attack seeking high-profile targets, part of an effort to rattle public confidence as Afghan security forces take over most responsibility for protecting the country ahead of the withdrawal of foreign troops next year.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai said: “These cowardly terrorist attacks on the Afghan people cannot change the chosen path of the Afghan people toward progress, development, peace and elections.” He was referring to next spring’s poll to elect a new head of state.

Afghanistan and the United States support the opening of a Taliban political office in Qatar as part of an effort to rekindle talks with the insurgent group, which has been waging war against the government and the coalition for nearly 12 years. But first, Kabul and Washington say, the Taliban must renounce all ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups and accept Afghanistan’s constitution.