At least 43 Afghan soldiers have been killed and nine wounded after two suicide bombers in Humvee trucks targeted a military base in the southern province of Kandahar. Six are still missing and 10 militants are also said to have died.
Separately, two members of the security forces have died in a siege on police headquarters in the eastern province of Ghazni. The Taliban said it was behind the early morning bloodshed. The attacks are the third and fourth major assaults on Afghan security forces this week.
“Unfortunately there is nothing left inside the camp. They have burned down everything they found inside,” defence ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said about the Kandahar attack. Two days earlier, Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen killed at least 41 people when they stormed a police training centre in the eastern Afghan city of Gardez.
Some 150 people were injured in the violence. The local hospital, in Paktia province, said it was “overwhelmed” and issued an urgent appeal for blood donors.
