Taliban attack police headquarters in east Afghanistan

[June 01, 2015]  JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban militants stormed a police headquarters in an Afghan city after a suicide bomb attack at its gate and wounded at least nine policemen, officials said on Monday.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the police compound in the eastern city of Jalalabad, which began before midnight on Sunday when a suicide bomber detonated a car-bomb at the gate, clearing the way for his comrades to rush in.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the attack was aimed at an "importing meeting" at the headquarters. A police commander said his men over-powered the militants.

"Our security forces responded quickly. They shot and killed four others, while a fifth attacker has been detained,"

said provincial police chief Fazal Ahmad Shirzad.

Police seized AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades from the attackers, he said.

The Taliban, forced from power by U.S.-backed Afghan opponents and U.S. air strikes in 2001, are fighting to expel foreign forces and the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

In recent weeks, the militants have accelerated their insurgency across the country.

Last week, four Taliban insurgents stormed a guesthouse in the diplomatic quarter of the Afghan capital last week and held out for hours until they were killed by government forces.

(Reporting by Rafiq Sherzad in Jalalabad; Writing by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Jessica Donati, Robert Birsel)

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