Twin Taliban attacks at Afghanistan army base kill dozens

Twin attacks launched by the Taliban at an army base in southern Afghanistan have killed dozens of soldiers, Afghan officials said on Thursday 19 October.

Two suicide car bombs, followed by several hours of intense fighting, claimed the lives of at least 43 soldiers at an army camp in the southern Kandahar province.

The two bombs went off in succession on Wednesday night, triggering clashes between the Afghan army and militants.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a media statement.

The Afghan Defencee Ministry confirmed that at least 43 people had died.

Spokesman Dawlat Wazir said that 10 attackers were killed in the clashes. He said that nine Afghan soldiers had been wounded and that six had gone missing.

Another Taliban ambush, in northern Afghanistan, killed six police officers on Wednesday night, a spokesman for the provincial police chief told The Associated Press.

The attacks come just two days after Taliban gunmen stormed a police training centre in the eastern city of Gardez, killing at least 74 people.

Afghanistan's deputy interior minister, Murad Ali Murad, called Tuesday's onslaught the "biggest terrorist attack this year."