Kabul deploys 7,000 officers to guard against Independence Day attacks

THE Afghan police have ordered 7,000 officers onto the streets of Kabul to guard against attacks on senior leaders during Independence Day celebrations today, responding to signs of the Taliban’s growing strength near the capital.

Even the location of the celebration of Afghanistan’s 89th anniversary of independence from Britain was kept secret and will be closed to the public to try to minimise the risk of disruption by insurgents.

In April, gunmen in a hotel room fired on Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a military parade in Kabul.

Karzai escaped injury, but the attack killed three people, including a lawmaker.

Taliban violence has spiked across Afghanistan in recent days, including an ambush on a Nato convoy yesterday, attacks on police checkpoints and a roadside bomb targeting a police convoy.

More than 90 people were killed over four days — most of them reportedly Taliban insurgents.

Zabul Province Deputy Gov Gulab Shah Alikheil said 32 Taliban fighters died during a four-hour battle yesterday.

Alikheil said the militants ambushed a Nato supply convoy escorted by private security, sparking the battle that drew in Afghan soldiers. The Interior Ministry said nine Afghan private security guards died.

Kabul so far has been spared the violence afflicting much of Afghanistan, but there are signs the Taliban and other militant groups have gained a foothold in neighbouring provinces.

The capital suffered bomb attacks this year against an international hotel and the Indian Embassy.

Interior Ministry spokes- man Zemarai Bashary said more than 7,000 extra police were drafted for what he described as the biggest operation of its kind in Kabul since 2001, when US-led forces ousted the Taliban.

The Interior Ministry said the capital’s police would search buildings and cars to “prevent any disruptive actions by the enemy.”

In an ambush last week, insurgents wielding assault rifles gunned down three female aid workers about an hour’s drive south of Kabul.

One of those killed, Jacqueline Kirk, 40, had been a senior research fellow at the University of Ulster in Coleraine.

In June, Afghan and Nato commanders mustered thousands of troops to clear militants from a strategic valley within striking distance of Kandahar, the main southern city.

Overall, insurgent attacks jumped by 50% in the first half of 2008 from the previous year, according to data from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, a Kabul-based group that advises relief groups on security.

More than 3,200 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency- related violence this year.