GARDEZ, Afghanistan — Suspected Taliban militants armed with bombs, rifles and rocket-propelled grenades launched near-simultaneous assaults Tuesday on Afghan and U.S. facilities in two eastern cities, killing six Afghan police and intelligence officers.
The attacks in Gardez and Jalalabad may have been aimed at relieving pressure on Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan — the focus of U.S. and British operations against the hard-line Islamic militants.
A quick response by Afghan police and soldiers prevented higher casualties. Eight insurgents were killed and one was captured in the two attacks, officials said, adding that none got away.
Nevertheless, the assaults showed that the Taliban are capable of mounting complex attacks in different parts of the country, stretching the capabilities of U.S. and allied forces locked in the bloodiest fighting of the Afghan war.
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Militants, some of them wearing explosive belts and disguised in women's burqa robes, launched the attacks in late morning, storming the governor's compound, the intelligence department and the police department in Gardez and the U.S.-run airfield in Jalalabad about 90 miles to the northeast.
In Gardez, three intelligence officials were killed when a rocket exploded inside the intelligence department building. Three policemen were killed when one of the terrorists blew himself up in front of a Gardez police station, according to deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Dastagir, adding that police shot and killed another would-be bomber before he could detonate his explosives.
Four other attackers were shot and killed at the police station and the governor's compound, Dastagir said. At least two bombers were wearing burqas, presumably to conceal the explosives, officials said. Bits of the blue burqas could be seen on the bloodstained sidewalk and hanging from nearby trees hours after the attack.
At nearly the same time, three militants tried to attack the U.S. base at Jalalabad. U.S. and Afghan troops killed two of the attackers and captured the third, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.
In western Afghanistan on Tuesday, police in Nimroz province detained five Afghans suspected of planning suicide attacks, according to provincial Gov. Ghulam Dastagir Azad. All had come from neighboring Iran, Azad said.
The attacks Tuesday could have been aimed at diverting resources from the southern province of Helmand, where U.S. Marines and British soldiers are battling the Taliban for control of the center of the country's lucrative opium poppy trade. Opium is a major source of funding for the Taliban.
British military officials announced Tuesday that a British soldier was killed the day before in Helmand as he tried to defuse a roadside bomb — the weapon that has accounted for more than two-thirds of allied casualties suffered in recent fighting. He was the 18th British soldier killed in Afghanistan in July — the deadliest month of the war for both U.S. and NATO forces.
US toll in afghanistan
• Deaths: 670
• Wounded: 3,237
No recent casualties identified.
Source: Department of Defense.
