At least 21 people have been killed in a deadly attack by Islamic State on central prison in eastern region of Afghanistan’s Jalalabad city. It all started on Sunday evening when a car bomb exploded at the entrance of prison. The attack continued overnight until Monday morning, injuring around 43 people.
According to sources three attackers had been killed but others were continuing to fight security forces from the top floor of a residential building. The prison holds more than 1,700 inmates, most of them Taliban and IS fighters, a security source told news agency AFP. Afghan Security and Defense Force personnel in armoured vehicles surrounded the prison in the middle of Jalalabad, just 700 meters (half a mile) from the governor’s office. Soldiers were still evacuating residents from the area on Monday as irregular gunshots came out.
The militant Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, known as IS in Khorasan province, has claimed responsibility for the attack. The affiliate is headquartered in Nangarhar province.
The motive of the attack wasn’t immediately clear. However, some prisoners have escaped during the fighting, said another provincial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to journalists.
The prison houses about 1,500 inmates, of which several hundred are believed to be Islamic State members.
The attack comes a day after authorities said Afghan special forces killed a senior Islamic State commander near Jalalabad.
While the militant Islamic State group has seen its so-called caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria eliminated after a years-long campaign, the group has continued fighting in Afghanistan. The extremists also have battled the Taliban in the country.
According to Taliban’s political spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, his group was not involved in the Jalalabad attack. The US struck a peace deal with the Taliban in February. A second, crucial round of talks between the Taliban and the political leadership in Kabul has yet to start. Still, Washington and NATO already have begun retreating troops in line with the deal.
The Taliban declared a three-day cease-fire starting on Friday for the major Muslim holiday of Eidul Azha. The cease-fire expired at 12am on Monday though it wasn’t immediately clear if it would be extended as the US pushes for an early start to intra-Afghan negotiations that have repeatedly been delayed since Washington signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February.
The Taliban also had denied being involved in a suicide bombing in eastern Logar province late Thursday that killed at least nine people and wounded 40.
Afghanistan has seen a recent spike in violence, with most attacks claimed by the local Islamic State group affiliate.
The attack happened on the third and final day of a temporary ceasefire between the Afghan government and the Taliban, with hundreds of Taliban prisoners released in an effort to get peace talks moving between the two sides.
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