Bomb attacks in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar are a warning to Nato’s top general that the Taliban are ready for an offensive in their heartland, the insurgents said yesterday.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the bombings showed the insurgents were still able to operate despite the build-up of Afghan and international troops in the south in preparation for a push into Kandahar province.
A separate, Taliban-linked website called the attacks a “warning” to General Stanley McChrystal.
The top Nato general has said that Kandahar province is the next target for coalition forces who recently drove the insurgents from a key stronghold in neighbouring Helmand province.
“Gen McChrystal has said that soon they will start their operations – and now we have already started our operations,” Ahmadi said by telephone.
“With all the preparations they have taken, still they are not able to stop us.”
The multiple explosions – there were at least five blasts, four of them suicide attacks – killed at least 35 people, according to the Ministry of Interior.
Kandahar provincial governor Tooryalai Wesa told reporters that he had asked the central government in Kabul for more Afghan troops to protect the city in the run-up to the expected offensive in the province, which is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. He also said he wanted to co-ordinate with Nato forces to improve security.
Ministry of Interior spokesman Zemeri Bashary said that the government was considering Mr Wesa’s request for additional forces.
Residents said Taliban militants can operate with little restraint in Kandahar, the largest city in southern Afghanistan and capital of the province that shares its name.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks, which hit the city’s prison, police headquarters, a wedding hall next door and other areas on roads leading to the prison.
The main target was the prison, where investigators have found eight suicide vests, three rockets and AK47 ammunition, police said.
Mr Bashary told reporters the attackers were trying to free prisoners and block security forces from responding, “but they failed in their mission”.
No inmates escaped from the lock-up.
Among the dead were 13 policemen and 22 civilians, including six women and three children, the interior ministry said.
Most of the casualties were at the police headquarters and at a wedding celebration in a hall next door.
Another 57 people were wounded, including 17 policemen, and 42 homes were damaged, the ministry said.
Kandahar city was the seat of government for the Taliban when it ruled Afghanistan, imposing its vision of Islamic theocracy for five years before being toppled by US-backed forces in 2001.
The offensive that US, Nato and Afghan forces are planning in Kandahar later this year is a follow-up to the continuing military operation in Helmand province’s Marjah district.