KABUL: The Taliban stormed a police checkpoint in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province and killed seven policemen, a provincial official said on Monday.

The attack took place the previous night in the district of Ghani Kahil, said the provincial police chief, Ghulam Sanayee Stanikzai. Five Taliban fighters were killed in the attack, he said.

Stanikzai also said that in Khogyani district, also in Nangarhar province, a government air strike on Sunday night left 20 Taliban fighters dead.

There was no statement from the Taliban on either the Ghani Kahil attack or the air strike.

Earlier on Sunday, a suicide bomber on foot struck outside the building of the Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ministry in the capital, Kabul, killing seven people and wounding 15.

The militant Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement Monday on its Aamaq news agency, saying it targeted government employees and warning their attacks will reach “all who help the Crusaders,” a term militants use to refer to foreign forces.

Last month, a suicide bombing near the same ministry killed 12 people and wounded 31 others, mostly government employees.

On Monday, a would-be suicide attacker was shot and killed by police in Kabul before he was able to get close to a gathering of supporters of the country’s first vice president, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, according to police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai. Dostum is currently in Turkey.

No one immediately clai­med responsibility for the attack, but both Taliban and the IS group have stepped up their attacks in Kabul.

Meanwhile, intense week-long battles have been underway between the Taliban and IS in northern Jawzjan province, according to Gen. Faqir Moham­mad Jawzjani, the provincial police chief.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2018