A compound in Kabul used by the US s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) came under attack Sunday, officials said, the latest in a series of assaults in the Afghan capital.Afghan interior ministry spokesman Siddiq Siddiqui said police had heard “a couple of minutes” of gunfire from inside the Ariana Hotel compound at around 9.15pm (1645 GMT).”Our police heard there were some shots from inside the Ariana compound,” he said. But he added that Afghan forces could not go inside as the site “belongs to coalition forces” and was “not within the reach of police”.An Afghan government source said the Ariana compound was used by the CIA.
A US official in Washington confirmed an attack against a facility used by US officials in Kabul, saying “the situation is fluid, and the investigation is ongoing” over the incident.The CIA has not commented, but Afghan counter-intelligence sources said at least one attacker was killed in the incident.The CIA declined to comment. A spokesman for the US embassy in Kabul, Gavin Sundwall, also said he could not comment on the incident.Major Jason Waggoner, spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul, confirmed that “there were shots fired” near the hotel but did not have further details.
In another incident of violence in eastern Afghanistan, a suicide bomber on a motorbike detonated his explosives outside a local police headquarters. Four people were killed in the incident.Abdul Rahman, who coordinates security in Paktika province, says two policemen and two civilians died in the attack Sunday in Yahya Khel district near Afghanistan s eastern border with Pakistan.fter the attack, gunmen fired bullets at the police headquarters from two or three directions, but the gunfire ended after 15 minutes and no other casualties were reported.In Kabul, President Hamid Karzai appointed a panel of high-ranking officials, led by Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, to investigate the assassination of former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who headed the nation s peace council. – Dunyanews
