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KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents attacked a district government center in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday while American troops were meeting with local officials inside, wounding three American soldiers and killing three Afghan police officers, according to Afghan and American officials.


The attack was carried out by a group of 5 to 10 insurgents, some wearing suicide vests, who also took two Afghan officials hostage at the Chamkani district government building in Paktia Province, said Master Sgt. Nicholas Conner, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force troops in eastern Afghanistan.

The hostages included the local chief of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service, as well as the deputy governor of the district, he said.

It was unclear whether fighting had completely ended by nightfall, with varying accounts from officials. It was also unclear what had happened to the hostages who had been taken, but Afghan officials said no one was still being held after the fighting died down Thursday night.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, reached by telephone at an undisclosed location, said that “we have taken over the district center.”

Sergeant Conner said: “Technically, I guess you could say they have control of the building at this time, just like a bank robber has control of the bank when he takes hostages.”

The attack came as the Taliban leadership released a statement on the group’s Web site on Thursday mocking claims by the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, that Taliban attacks had been declining, and citing contrary information from “other enemy officials” that they had been increasing. The Taliban claims were reported by SITE, an organization that monitors jihadi and extremist Web sites.

NATO figures show that enemy attacks declined by 8 percent during the first nine months of this year compared with the year before. The United Nations, on the other hand, reported in September that insurgent attacks had increased by 39 percent in the first eight months of this year.

Referring to the gradual drawdown of military forces that has begun in Afghanistan, the Taliban statement read, “If Rasmussen and all his allies leave Afghanistan completely then the attacks on them will reach zero, and he can propagate the notion even more and say that the number of Taliban attacks have fallen further.”

The attack in Paktia began around 4 p.m. when one of the attackers exploded his vest at the gate of the district government compound, allowing the others to enter, officials said. Inside, American and Afghan officials had been discussing continuing talks on a future strategic partnership agreement between their two countries, local officials said.

An American Apache helicopter responded to the scene and received heavy machine gun fire from a second team of insurgents holed up in a nearby mosque, Sergeant Conner said. After seeking permission from Afghan officials, the helicopter fired missiles at the mosque and destroyed it. “They only engaged where they were taking fire from, and only after coordinating with the deputy governor of Paktia Province,” he said.

The district police chief, Habib Nour, was also among the wounded, according to Ruhullah Samoun, the spokesman for the provincial governor.

Chamkani district is strategically situated along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, in a rugged mountainous area that has seen a great deal of Taliban activity.

Thursday’s attack was one of several in the past few months targeting heavily guarded government and military centers. In July, the insurgents struck at provincial offices in Tirin Kot, capital of Oruzgan Province, killing 21 people, mostly civilians.

In August, they struck at Charikar, capital of Parwan Province, a normally peaceful area in northern Afghanistan, killing 22 people.

In September, it took the authorities about 20 hours to completely subdue a Taliban attack on the United States Embassy and ISAF headquarters; more than 20 people died in all, although none of the victims were from the embassy or the coalition military. In October, their target was an American military base in the heart of the Panjshir Valley, and while the attack failed, it stunned locals in the most anti-Taliban part of the country.

American officials have said that the Taliban have been seeking high-profile targets to compensate for the decline in their overall capacity to attack coalition forces in the field.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/wo...-district.html