Taliban staged room-to-room Afghan massacre

Taliban gunmen who killed 46 people at a courthouse in western Afghanistan in a bid to free insurgents moved ruthlessly from room to room, shooting everyone they found, officials say.

??Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers stand in the remains of windows at a court house after a Taliban attack killed 46.

FARAH // Taliban gunmen who killed 46 people at a courthouse in western Afghanistan in a bid to free insurgents moved ruthlessly from room to room, shooting everyone they found, officials recounted yesterday.

Defenceless civilians, judges, lawyers and court staff were left dead after nine militants disguised as Afghan soldiers launched an eight-hour assault on Wednesday, which only ended after security forces killed the last surviving gunman.

Taliban fighters frequently target government compounds, but the unprecedented massacre at a courthouse in the remote province of Farah raised new fears about the insurgency's strength as Nato forces withdraw from the battlefield.

Three attackers died when their explosive-laden vehicle, stolen from the Afghan army, drove into the entrance of the court in Farah city early in the morning.

The vehicle detonated in a huge blast when they refused to stop and police opened fire, said deputy governor of Farah province Mohammad Younus Rasouli.

Six other attackers entered the court buildings and the attorney general's office next door.

"They had 10 hand grenades each and lots of bullets. They smashed down each door and shot anyone in each room, one by one," Mr Rasouli said. "Everybody, all the attorneys and judges and anyone else. All were unarmed, defenceless."

Television footage and photographs showed badly damaged buildings, walls reduced to rubble and wrecked cars at the scene.

The governor of Farah, Mohammad Akram Khpalwak, said 36 civilians were killed, including four lawyers and four judges. Ten security force personnel were also killed and 95 to 100 people wounded, he added.

"Many people were stranded in the buildings. After they were rescued, the police and army started the operation to hunt down the attackers," said Mr Khpalwak. "Ten security force personnel died during the day."

The court was due to put Taliban militants on trial when the attack took place. The militants claimed to have freed 13 of the Taliban's members, but Mr Khpalwak said that 12 prisoners at the court were taken back to jail.

Wakil Ahmad, a doctor at Farah hospital, said on Wednesday that one court prisoner was among those treated for injuries.

The attack in Farah, a province that borders Iran, was the deadliest for more than a year in Afghanistan and comes as Nato forces who have fought the Taliban since 2001 start to pull out.

The Afghan police and army are being handed responsibility for quelling the insurgency before Nato combat missions finish at the end of next year, with many observers predicting the country could tip into further instability.

The president, Hamid Karzai, condemned the assault as a "massacre" and said Afghans would "not let such killings of Muslims by the Taliban go unpunished".

Karzai, in the official English translation of his statement, described the killings as "genocide".

The Taliban released a statement celebrating a "successful martyrdom attack", and said it was a carefully planned operation launched after receiving intelligence about the trial.

Army and police "forces tried to raid the buildings multiple times but were repelled by mujaheddin, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy," the Taliban said.

Much of the international military effort to defeat the Taliban has concentrated on the south and east of the country since the militants were ousted from Kabul in 2001 after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US.

But the Farah attack has added to concerns that the militia is increasingly widening its attacks outside its main power bases.

In the eastern province of Ghazni on Thursday, a Nato air raid aimed at insurgents killed four local police and two civilians, Afghan officials said.

A spokesman for the US-led Nato force in Kabul said that the military was checking the information.