AFGHANISTAN: 4 attackers killed after mortar fire on presidential palace

Rockets were fired towards the presidential palace in Kabul as the Afghan president delivered a message of peace for Muslim celebrations of Eid al-Adha, with helicopter gunships destroying buildings from where the projectiles were launched. An official at the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan said nine attackers launched about 30 mortar rounds from two […]

Rockets were fired towards the presidential palace in Kabul as the Afghan president delivered a message of peace for Muslim celebrations of Eid al-Adha, with helicopter gunships destroying buildings from where the projectiles were launched.

An official at the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan said nine attackers launched about 30 mortar rounds from two separate locations in Kabul.

The mortar barrage came two days after President Ashraf Ghani offered the Taliban a three-month ceasefire.

The boom of the rockets was heard in the live broadcast of Ghani’s speech. He interrupted his message to say: “If they are thinking the rocket attack will keep Afghans down, they are wrong.”

Afghan police cordoned off two locations and military helicopters destroyed two firing positions.

“In total four of the nine insurgents were killed. The other five insurgents surrendered to Afghan forces,” US Forces-Afghanistan spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Martin O’Donnell said in a statement.