Suicide bombers strike police training center in southern Afghanistan’s main city

Suicide bombers attack Afghan police compound

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — At least three suicide bombers attacked a police training center Monday in southern Afghanistan’s largest city, but the assailants were killed before they could inflict any casualties, officials said.

One of the attackers drove an explosives-laden car up to the gate of the center and detonated the bomb, blowing a hole in the compound wall, the Interior Ministry said. Two other bombers tried to storm through the hole, engaging in a gunbattle with police before blowing themselves up outside.

Gen. Gul Nabi Ahmadzai, head of police training programs for Afghanistan, gave a slightly different account, saying the two gunmen were killed in firing by police. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack and said four bombers were sent.

The different accounts could not be immediately reconciled.

No police were wounded in the brazen midday attack, which could be heard throughout the city of Kandahar. NATO and Afghan forces swarmed the training center, but it appeared to be secure about an hour after the explosion.

The Taliban have struck the city recently with a slew of bombings and assassinations of people seen as government allies — in a counteroffensive to a NATO push into their southern strongholds.

Monday’s attack came the day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai removed two of the country’s top security officials — each with long-time ties to American forces — over an attack on a national conference exploring peace with the Taliban.

The removals Sunday of the interior minister and intelligence chief surprised U.S. officials and may cause major disruption within Afghanistan’s intelligence and security establishment at a critical juncture while the U.S. and NATO escalate the war and the Afghan government commits to offering peace to the insurgents.

The move is likely to fuel speculation over differences within the Karzai administration over its efforts to reconcile with the Taliban — including the possible release of hundreds of detained militant suspects.

The head of the National Directorate of Security, Amrullah Saleh, was a senior figure in the Northern Alliance that helped the U.S. oust the Taliban regime in 2001. As a young man, Interior Minister Hanif Atmar served in Afghanistan’s Communist-era intelligence agency and fought mujahedeen opposed to the Soviet occupation.

“It’s a very significant event. There will be a massive fallout from these resignations both in the Interior Ministry and the NDS as alliances are shuffled,” said Candace Rondeaux, senior analyst on Afghanistan for the International Crisis Group think tank.

“They appear to be forced resignations, and reflect significant worries of Karzai’s administration over the loyalty of those leading key security agencies in the country,” she said.

Sunday’s resignations were a surprise — particularly since the attack on the jirga conference in Kabul last week was thwarted. Security officials have rarely faced punishment or resigned over previous major attacks in the capital.

Karzai left Afghanistan on Monday to attend an international conference in Spain, canceling a news conference he had scheduled earlier. His spokesman, Waheed Omer, insisted the security lapse at the peace conference was the only reason for the two resignations.

“This could have been national chaos, a national crisis” if the attack had succeeded, Omer told reporters. “Somebody had to take responsibility for this.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking to reporters on his way to London, stepped gingerly in answering questions about the abrupt resignations of Saleh and Atmar, whom U.S. officials had often singled out by name as examples of competent leadership in a government riven by corruption and patronage.

“It’s obviously an internal matter for the Afghans,” Gates said.

“I would just hope President Karzai will appoint in the place of those who have left people of equal caliber,” he said.

Saleh, an ethnic Tajik, had served as intelligence chief since 2004 and had a long-standing relationship with the CIA in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

British-educated Atmar, a former education minister, was first appointed interior minister in a 2008 Cabinet reshuffle aimed at rooting out high-level corruption in Karzai’s government. He was reappointed after Karzai’s re-election.

Two Taliban militants fired rockets where some 1,500 delegates — including lawmakers, tribal and religious chiefs — had gathered in a grand tent. One of the missiles landed about 200 yards (meters) away, but no delegates were hurt. The militants were later killed in a gunbattle with security forces in a house about a mile (1.5 kilometers) away.

Associated Press writers Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Anne Gearan, traveling with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, contributed to this report.