Blasts, gun battle kill 15; 42 injured

Afghan security forces battled for hours against a group of attackers who stormed a government building in the eastern city of Jalalabad yesterday after a coordinated assault that killed at least 15 people and wounded 42, local officials said.

A car bomb was detonated at the entrance to the state accounts office before a group of about six attackers armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades rushed the building, the officials said. There were multiple blasts as they fought off security forces in a gun battle that lasted much of the day.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, the Islamist militant group's Amaq news agency said without providing any evidence.

The attack took place in a busy area of the city with many other official buildings nearby, including a school in which about 1,000 girls were trapped as the fighting raged.

It was the latest in a series of high-profile attacks that have killed and wounded hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan this year and put heavy pressure on the Western-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Most have been in capital city Kabul, but in January IS gunmen attacked an office of aid group Save the Children in Jalalabad, killing at least five people and wounding 25.

After several hours of fighting that sent plumes of smoke rising into the sky above the accounts office, Attahullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said that yesterday's clash had ended with all the gunmen killed.