Six Taliban gunmen who attacked the Afghan parliament on Monday have been killed, police said, nearly two hours after lawmakers were forced to flee by a large explosion and gunfire.
Ebadullah Karimi, the Kabul police spokesman, said one Taliban fighter driving a car detonated a bomb outside parliament gates and six others took up positions near the building. Afghan forces killed six of them and all lawmakers were safe, he said.
A Taliban suicide bomber and gunmen attacked the Afghan parliament shattering windows, wounding at least 19 people and sending a plume of black smoke across Kabul, as a second district in two days fell to the Islamist group in the north.
The second district to fall to the Taliban on Monday was in the northern province of Kunduz.
The Taliban captured Dasht-e-Archi district a day after hundreds of militants fought their way to the centre of the adjacent district of Chardara.
“The Taliban managed to take it over this morning as the area has been surrounded for days,” Nasruddin Saeedi, the district governor who escaped to the provincial capital, Kunduz city, told Reuters by telephone.
Mohammad Yusuf Ayubi, head of the provincial council, said the insurgents attacked the district of Dashti Archi from four sides. He said around 150,000 residents of the district were unable to leave.
