Two Indians killed in Afghan missile attack

ISLAMABAD - Two Indians were killed in a missile attack launched by the Taliban on an Indian NGO’s office situated near a US airbase in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, a media report said Monday.

Qari Omar Haqqani, a spokesperson for the Afghan Taliban, told reporters from an undisclosed location that the outfit had attacked the office of the Indian NGO with missiles in which three people, including two Indian workers, were killed, Pakistani daily The News International reported.

The nationality of the third person who died in the attack is yet to be ascertained.

The Taliban leader did not name the NGO.

Haqqani said the Taliban also fired missiles at the nearby US airbase, injuring seven soldiers of the Afghan National Army. At least 10 missiles were fired at the two places, he said.

Taliban militants had targeted Indian nationals on earlier occasions too.

The outfit carried out suicide attacks at two hotels in Kabul Feb 26 this year, killing at least nine Indians, including two Majors of the Indian Army. The hotels were rented out by the Indian embassy for its staffers and those linked with India’s developmental work in Afghanistan.

In October 2009, a Taliban suicide bomber blew up an explosives-laden car outside the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 17 people and injuring over 80. The embassy staff, however, was unhurt.

In July 2008, a suicide attack on the embassy killed 41 people and injured over 140. The dead included two Indian diplomats - Political Counsellor V. Venkateswara Rao of the Indian Foreign Service and military attache at the embassy, Brigadier Ravi Datt Mehta - and Indo-Tibetan Border Police staffers Ajai Pathaniya and Roop Singh.