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Gun battle rages as Taliban militants attack Afghan bank At least ten killed as suspected Taliban militants storm Afghan bank with suicide bomb attack
(about 4 hours later)
Suspected Taliban militants have detonated a suicide bomb and stormed a bank in the southern Afghan province of Helmand engaging in a firefight with security forces while an unknown number of civilians were inside, police have said. At least ten people were killed after suspected Taliban militants detonated a suicide bomb and stormed a bank in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.
A Reuters witness at the scene heard the blast and the gunfire. Employees who escaped said that when the attack happened, the bank was busy with government workers who had come to collect their salaries. One of the attackers blew himself up at the front entrange on the New Kabul Bank in Lashgar Gah to allow the others in, it has been reported.
"According to our information, there were four Taliban, one of them detonated his explosives and three are fighting with security forces," said Farid Ahmad Obaid, spokesman for Helmand's police chief. Once the attackers were inside, they fired at security forces which had arrived at the building and surrounded the scene, Omer Zawaj, spokesman for the provincial governor, said.
Helmand police spokesman, Fareed Obaid, said three police officers were among those killed, while the attackers were killed in the gunbattle.
He said: “There are also 15 people wounded, including six members of the Afghan security forces.”
Afghan security forces keep watch as smoke rises from the site of an attack by Taliban suicide bombers at a branch of the Kabul Bank in Lashkar Gah (AFP)
The attack came the day after fighters from the Pakistani Taliban killed 148, including 132 children, in an attack on an army-run school in Peshwar.
The Afghan Taliban has condemned the attack, saying killing innocents was un-Islamic.
The Afghan group however has claimed responsibility for an attack on a school in Kabul last week, which saw a German aid worker killed.
Additional reporting by AP and Reuters