Afghan forces battled Monday to end an hours-long gun and bomb siege near the Indian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif city.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the raid on the diplomatic mission in northern Afghanistan, the latest in a series of assaults on Indian installations in the country.
“Our clearance operation is going on near the consulate,” government spokesman Munir Farhad told AFP.
“Since it is a residential area, we are proceeding very cautiously after overnight fighting to avoid civilian casualties.”
An Indian official, who was hunkered down in a secure area within the diplomatic enclave, said all consulate employees were safe and accounted for.
“We are being attacked,” the official told AFP by telephone from inside the heavily-guarded compound.
“Fighting is going on,” he said soon after the fighting erupted late Sunday evening.
Vikas Swarup, an Indian foreign ministry spokesman, also told AFP that no Indian casualties had been reported so far.
In May 2014, gunmen launched a pre-dawn attack on India’s consulate in the main western Afghan city of Herat before being repelled by security forces.
The Mazar-i-Sharif attack followed a deadly raid over the weekend by suspected insurgents on an air force base in the northern Indian state of Punjab.
Seven soldiers were confirmed killed in the raid on the Pathankot base, which triggered a 14-hour gun battle Saturday and spurred Indian forces to be scrambled again on Sunday.
“The operation continues at the base. (With) intermittent firing… we are moving step by step to sanitise the area,” an army spokesperson in Pathankot told AFP on Monday.
“It’s too early to say when the operation will be over.” (AFP)
