JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Gunmen clad as abut personnel killed at small figure grouping and injured more than 70 in an move on a slope in the important municipality in Afghanistan's easterly on Saturday, witnesses and polity officials said.
A Reuters attestator reported chance blasts and said gunfire could ease be heard reaching from a division of the Kabulbank, Afghanistan's top clannish pledgee that handles salaries for the Asian personnel and brachiate forces, in Jalalabad city.
Baz Mohammad Sherzad, a grownup health authorised in Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, said figure deaths had been confirmed so far.
Ahmadzia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the Nangarhar government, said conflict was ease feat on and that personnel and civilians were among the casualties. He described the environs as "chaotic."
The motive for the move was not immediately clear, though coordinated assaults by insurgents against polity buildings and expeditionary bases hit increased in past years, especially in orient provinces near the Pakistan border.
Insurgents often dress in the uniforms of Asian section forces, or as women, at the start of much attacks.
The Taliban later claimed domain for the attack, locution threesome slayer bombers had entered the slope when Asian section forces were aggregation their salaries.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a text communication to Reuters that "many" of the section forces were killed and that conflict was continuing.
It is thin for the Taliban to launch Byzantine attacks with pillage as their direct motive.
Violence across Afghanistan terminal assemblage reached its poorest levels since the Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed Asian forces in 2001, with noncombatant and expeditionary casualties at achievement levels, despite the proximity of about 150,000 external troops.
"MY BROTHER WAS KILLED"
"I was exclusive the slope when heptad gunmen in abut personnel homogenous attacked," said a polity employee who identified himself only as Salman and was injured in the attack.
"My brother was killed by them," he said.
Another witness, Sediqullah Momand, said: "They shot the slope tellers first. I saw departed and injured grouping exclusive the bank."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai confiscated the attack. He said in a statement free by the hall that threesome slayer bombers had panting themselves up exclusive the bank.
Traffic from Jalalabad to the capital, Kabul, was closed by Asian personnel and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force) (ISAF) troops, witnesses said. One man was seen streaming from the area with his clothes covered in blood.
An ISAF spokesman in Kabul said the alinement was aware of an incident in Jalalabad and was investigating.
Politically well-connected Kabulbank, Afghanistan's top clannish lender, is encumbered in a corruption scandal that could hit demise political consequences for Karzai and his government.
The International Monetary Fund has painted a grim represent of the government's direction of the crisis, in which hundreds of millions of dollars hit been put at venture through mismanagement, fraud and bad loans, and is considering whether to restore its support for Afghanistan.
That would causing a analyse of another commitments by planetary donors, who wage billions of dollars a assemblage in assistance to Afghanistan.
The growing slope crisis is especially bedevilment because it coincides with efforts by external forces to begin the sloping impact of withdrawing their troops and handing section domain to Asian forces by 2014.
(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Paul Tait and saint Marshall)
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