At least six people, including a police officer, were killed after ISIS gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed a national television and radio station in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, government officials say.
The attackers, carrying AK-47s, entered Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) on Wednesday, in the latest assault on media workers in the country.
The raid on the RTA state broadcaster was carried out by four attackers, one of whom had detonated a suicide bomb at the entrance to the compound, said provincial governor Gulab Mangal.
As the attack unfolded, heavy gunfire was heard from around the RTA building, which is close to the governor’s compound.
The three others were killed by security forces in the gun battle, Mangal said.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack that comes over a week after the leader of ISIL in Afghanistan was killed in a US drone strike.
“Three attackers are dead and so are three other people,” Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, said quoting police officials.
At least 16 people, including journalists, were wounded in the attack which took place in central Jalalabad, close to the provincial governor’s office and a busy square, Hendren said.
Among the dead were four RTA employees, including a driver, a guard, and two technical personnel, as well as two policemen, according to Mangal.
ISIS has established a stronghold in Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is capital, where it fights both the Taliban and Afghan government forces.
source: al jazeera