11 Afghan Soldiers Killed in Latest Attack in Kabul

Militants on Monday raided a military academy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, killing 11 soldiers, the fourth major attack in a spate of violence over the past nine days that is putting a new, more aggressive US strategy under the spotlight.

Five gunmen attacked an army outpost near one of Afghanistan’s main military academies on Monday and 11 soldiers were killed and 15 wounded before the attackers were subdued, the defense ministry said, Reuters reported.

The self-styled Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack near the Marshal Fahim military academy on the city’s western outskirts, in which four of the gunmen were killed and one captured.

It came two days after an ambulance bomb in the city center killed more than 100 people and just over a week after another attack on the Hotel Intercontinental, also in Kabul, killed more than 20.

Both of those attacks were claimed by the Taliban.

Ministry of Defense officials said the five militants, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, attacked the outpost near the well-defended academy just before dawn.

Security officials at the scene said the gunmen had used a ladder to get over a wall into the post.

While militants claiming allegiance to Islamic State operate in mountains in the eastern province of Nangarhar, little is known about the group and many analysts question whether they are solely responsible for the attacks they have claimed in Kabul and elsewhere.

IS claimed an assault on the office of aid group Save the Children in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Wednesday in which six people were killed.

The attacks have put pressure on President Ashraf Ghani and his US allies, who have expressed growing confidence that a new, more aggressive military strategy has succeeded in driving Taliban insurgents back from major provincial centers.