Afghan Army Deploys After ISIS Attacks on Civilians

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan army will take over security in the eastern city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan officials said Tuesday, hours after attackers overran a government refugee office there, killing 15 people. It was at least the 10th such assault on civilian targets this year.

The assault was part of a series of attacks attributed to the Islamic State against “soft targets” in or near the city of Jalalabad, where the extremists have been particularly active, mostly attacking civilians rather than confronting Afghan security forces.

Officials were so concerned that a decision was made to hand over security for the area to the Afghan National Army, beginning on Wednesday, according to Attaullah Khogyani, the spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province.

The attack on Tuesday began with two midday explosions outside the department of refugee affairs, with several gunmen then entering the building and its compound, Khogyani said.

Special forces engaged in “intensive fighting” against the attackers, Khogyani said, and rescued several people trapped inside the building.

Khogyani said the Islamic State was probably responsible for the attack, which he said began as refugee officials met with donors’ representatives, although no foreigners were present.

The 15 people killed included a woman and a police officer, Khogyani said. The International Rescue Committee, a global relief organization, said an Afghan staff member also was killed.

“We condemn this sickening attack on a humanitarian coordination meeting, where aid workers and government officials were discussing how best to help vulnerable Afghans,” the organization said in a statement.

At least 15 others were injured, some as a result of jumping from the building during the attack. All three attackers were killed.

The Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, which calls itself the Islamic State in Khorasan, did not immediately claim responsibility, but normally it makes such claims only after an assault is over, and often the following day.

The Taliban immediately denied responsibility, according to a statement from their spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, in line with their recent promise not to attack predominantly civilian targets.

The Islamic State in Khorasan has its strongest Afghan presence in southern Nangarhar province and has carried out at least nine other attacks against purely civilian targets in Jalalabad or nearby this year. The group turned to suicide attacks on civilian targets, particularly lightly defended ones, after being heavily battered by U.S. airstrikes and American and Afghan special operations assaults last year.

Abdul Rahman Mawen, a civil activist in Jalalabad, blamed the extremists’ declining battlefield fortunes for the attacks on soft targets. “ISIS was fighting against security forces in the first stages, but when they were beaten and suppressed by the security forces, they started attacking women, children and civilian targets,” he said.

Nothing has proved off limits to the extremists. On Saturday, Islamic State fighters attacked a school for midwives in Jalalabad, killing three employees, although most of the 67 female students escaped unharmed. ISIS claimed responsibility the next day.

In May, they attacked during a government and Taliban cease-fire over the Ramadan holiday of Eid al-Fitr, killing 36 civilians at a celebration in Jalalabad.

On May 31, it was a boys’ school in the Khogyani district of Nangarhar province, where the extremists beheaded three school workers. A day later, they attacked a group of minority Sikhs and Hindus waiting to meet President Ashraf Ghani while he was visiting Jalalabad; 19 were killed, including the country’s only Sikh candidate for Parliament.

Government offices in Jalalabad have been attacked by the Islamic State repeatedly.

In May, the Islamic State killed eight civilians attending a Jalalabad cricket match. In January, the insurgents stormed the offices of Save the Children in Jalalabad, killing at least five people.

A Nangarhar Provincial Council member, Zabihullah Zamarai, said it had gotten so bad that children were afraid to walk to school. “Every government institution in the city has been attacked. What is going on in this city?” he said. “No one is paying any attention to the situation here.”