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Rocket attack kills official in Afghanistan

KHOST: An Afghan intelligence official was killed and several government buildings were damaged in a rocket attack by suspected Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday.

A barrage of some 20 rockets landed late on Saturday in Sharana, the capital of the insurgency-hit province of Paktika, they said. “One intelligence official was killed and several government buildings were damaged,” a high-ranking police official said.

He said that the attack by suspected loyalists of the ousted Taliban regime was the worst in the insurgency-hit region in recent months. “They targeted almost all government buildings across the town,” he said.

The fundamentalist Taliban government was toppled in US-led military operations in 2001 for not handing over Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Despite the presence of some 20,000 US-led coalition troops and a 10,000-strong North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, Taliban fighters are still able to attack Afghan and foreign troops.

The insurgents are most active in the country’s south and east bordering Pakistan. afp

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