Afghanistan:

Attack Is Latest to Jolt a Usually Quiet Afghan Area

Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times

Afghan police officers and civilians carried the body of a victim of the suicide bombings in Parwan Province, Afghanistan, on Sunday.

By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and ROD NORDLAND

published: August 14, 2011

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HARIKAR, Afghanistan — The governor of Parwan Province, Abdul Basir Salangi, convened a meeting Sunday morning with his top aides to find out why security had not been improved around his offices, 10 days after reports that a group of suicide bombers was planning an attack.

An Afghan policeman looked at the destruction at the compound of the governor of Parwan Province.

A former jihadi commander from the war against the Soviets, Mr. Salangi is an imposing figure, and his anger was evident as he dressed down the aides, including the provincial police chief. The intelligence was very specific, he told them: The bombers might arrive in a Toyota Corolla.

Just then, as he later recalled the moment, there were two explosions as a group of suicide bombers blew their way into the governor’s compound. In the three-hour firefight that followed, the attackers killed 22 people — 6 of them police officers, the rest government staff members and civilian visitors — before they were subdued.

Afterward, Mr. Salangi, who was unhurt, said, with evident asperity, “I believe the security forces in Parwan fell short in preventing this thing.”

The episode in Parwan Province, in central Afghanistan 35 miles north of the capital, was the latest in a series of insurgent attacks in what had been the quiet provinces neighboring the capital. It comes as United States military officials are weighing where to withdraw the first of 10,000 troops that had been part of last year’s deployment.

Parwan and nearby provinces have had relatively scant American troop presence, because, until recently, insurgent activity was slight. But military commanders are thought to be reluctant to withdraw troops from more active battlefields like Kandahar and Helmand Provinces in the south, for fear of losing some of the gains made there, so quieter areas may see big troop reductions, with the risk that the insurgents will take advantage of that, some analysts worry.

In addition, Parwan is among the possible candidates for the second stage of the transition from NATO to Afghan control, scheduled for next month.

“This will have no effect on transition,” the governor insisted. “All these suicide attacks show the weakness of the Taliban, because they cannot fight with us; this is the only way they have. Parwan is still considered a peaceful province.”

Sunday’s attack involved six suicide bombers, the first in a vehicle — a Toyota Corolla, as Mr. Salangi had predicted — that exploded outside the gates of the governor’s compound. Then, according to the account from the governor and from local police officials, one of the attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the police post in front of the gates, and the five surviving attackers stormed into the compound.

They used automatic weapons, grenade launchers and rockets to press their attack, setting off their explosive-filled vests when unable to fight further. Witnesses said the attackers managed to reach the governor’s office in the second building they came to, killing most of their victims there. However, the governor was holding his meeting in a third building, because it had the only room large enough, and the attackers never reached that one.

“The enemy wanted to kill the governor who is the head of jihad and resistance, here in Parwan, which is the center of jihad and resistance, and we fought them off,” Mr. Salangi said, referring to himself, and his role fighting the Soviets and later the Taliban. It was at least the third assassination attempt on Mr. Salangi by the insurgents.

The Parwan deputy police chief, Zia-u-Rahman Sayedkhili, was in the second building when the blast knocked him down, but he survived because some tables had been blown on top of him, protecting him, he said.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Seddiq Seddiqi, put the number killed at 22, with at least 34 wounded, 10 of them police officers.

The attack was particularly brazen. Directly opposite the governor’s office are the local Afghan National Army headquarters, and the police headquarters are only about 400 yards away.

A Taliban spokesman, reached by telephone at an undisclosed location, claimed responsibility for the attack and said that the victims included American soldiers. Officials at the scene denied there were any non-Afghan victims.

It was the second serious attack in Parwan Province in recent months. In June, a Taliban roadblock on the province’s major highway led to the abduction and execution of the provincial council head from neighboring Bamian Province. And just to the east, in Kapisa Province, which also borders Kabul, five French soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber last month. Just west of Kabul, in the Maydan Shah area, five policemen and three intelligence agents were abducted by the Taliban on Thursday and beheaded; their bodies were discovered Friday night, according to the police chief in Wardak Province, Abdul Qayoum Baqizoi.
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul.
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