Jalalabad (Afghanistan): A gunbattle between Islamic State (IS) fighters and Afghan security forces has been continuing here Since Sunday evening at a prison. So far 24 people have been killed after the militants’ overnight assault led to a mass jailbreak.
The attack began Sunday evening with car bomb detonated at the entrance to the prison. There were numerous other blasts heard as the IS gunmen opened fire on security guards. Some 30 militants involved in the attack on the prison, where some 2,000 prisoners were held, according to Sohrab Qaderi, a lawmaker in the capital of Nangarhar province.
Three militants were killed during the initial attack and gunbattle overnight, while at least 21 civilians and members of security forces died in the fighting. The toll may rise as 43 have been wounded, some of them critically, Attaullah Khugyani, a spokesman for the governor said.
Police were forced to divert manpower to recapture escaped prisoners amid the chaos. By noon Monday around 1,000 had been caught, Qaderi said, without elaborating on how many were still at large.
Afghan Special Forces arrived to support police, according to officials. Civilians were being evacuated from areas surrounding the prison, where Taliban and IS prisoners were being held along with ordinary criminals.
“The whole city of Jalalabad is under curfew, shops are closed,” Qaderi said. “Jalalabad is completely empty,” he added.
IS claimed responsibility for the attack. It which came a day after Afghan intelligence agency said Special Forces had killed a senior commander of the IS near this city.
A United Nations report last month estimated there are around 2,200 IS members in Afghanistan. The report said that while the group is in territorial retreat and its leadership has been depleted, it remains capable of carrying out high-profile attacks.
While the IS has seen its so-called caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria eliminated, the group has continued fighting in Afghanistan. The extremists also have battled the Taliban in the country, whom the US overthrew following the 2001 American-led invasion after the September 11 attacks.
The Taliban’s political spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, said that his group was not involved in the Jalalabad attack. “We have a ceasefire and are not involved in any of these attacks anywhere in the country,” he said.