6 dead as armed militants storm bank in Afghanistan

By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan (AA) - Armed militants stormed a private bank in southeastern Afghanistan on Saturday, leaving at least six people, including three attackers, dead.

A local branch of the New Kabul Bank (NKB) -- a private bank that distribute salaries to public servants, including those associated with the security sector -- was targeted by the militants in Gardez, the capital of the Paktia province.

Abdul Wali, the governor, told journalists after the attack that all three attackers were killed. “We have three martyrs and 31 people were injured. Our brave security forces overcame the attackers very swiftly, and killed all three of them within an hour,” he said.

Dr. Sher Mohammad, chief of medicine at Gardez’s public hospital, told Anadolu Agency that five seriously wounded people were sent to the nation’s capital Kabul for treatment.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Other branches of the same bank were previously targeted twice in the eastern city of Jalalabad. In a suicide attack two years ago, more than 30 people were killed and up to 100 injured in Jalalabad. Before that, more than 40 people were killed during a Taliban attack on an NKB bank in 2011.

On Twitter, Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack as “a cynical assault on Afghan people living their lives and doing business”. Ghani is currently in the Saudi capital Riyadh to attend an international summit on countering terrorism, set to be addressed by U.S. President Donald Trump.