11 Afghan troops die in Islamic State attack on Kabul military academy

Islamic State militants attacked Afghan soldiers guarding a military academy in the capital of Kabul on Monday, killing at least 11 troops and wounding 16.

The attack was the latest in a wave of relentless violence in Kabul this month unleashed by the Taliban and the rival Islamic State group that has killed scores and left hundreds wounded.

Monday’s attack started around 4 a.m. local time, witnesses said, and fighting continued long after daybreak.

A suicide bomber first struck the military unit responsible for providing security for the academy, followed by a gun battle with the troops, said Dawlat Waziri, spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry.

At least five insurgents were involved in the morning assault, according to Waziri. Two of the attackers were killed in the gun battle, two detonated their suicide vests and one was arrested by the troops, he said.

All roads leading to the military academy were blocked by police, which only allowed ambulances access to the site to transfer the wounded to hospitals.

After the gun battle ended, the security forces resumed control of the area. They also confiscated one suicide vest, an AK-47 and some ammunition, Waziri said.

Waziri earlier said that five soldiers were killed but later raised the death toll to 11. He insisted, however, that “the attack was against an army unit providing security for the academy and not the academy itself.”

Afzal Aman, commander of the city’s military garrison, confirmed the attack in the area of the Marshal Fahim academy. Hashmat Faqeri, a resident near the site, told the Associated Press he heard sounds of explosions and a gun battle.

Hours later, the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, known as Khorasan Province, posted its claim of responsibility on the website of its media arm, the Aamaq news agency, saying its fighters targeted the “military academy in Kabul.”

Neighboring Pakistan condemned Monday’s attack. Islamabad said it “reiterates its strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, especially the series of heinous attacks within the last week in Afghanistan.”

The academy, known as Marshal Fahim National Defense University located on the edge of Kabul at the Camp Qargha military base, is sometimes also called “Sandhurst in the Sand” — a reference to the British academy. Named after Mohammed Fahim, the country’s late vice president and a military commander of the Northern Alliance that fought the Taliban, the academy was inaugurated in 2013 after British forces oversaw building the officers’ school and its training program.