KABUL — At least 48 people, many of them civilians, were killed Wednesday in western Afghanistan when heavily armed Taliban insurgents, including suicide bombers, stormed government buildings and fought a seven-hour gun battle with security forces, police said.
More than 90 people were reported wounded in the assault on the city of Farah, capital of Farah province. Police said all nine of the attackers died in the fighting, either in exchanges of fire with security forces or by detonating suicide vests they were wearing.
The death toll was the heaviest in many months in Afghanistan, where the radical Islamist Taliban movement is fighting to drive out foreign troops and topple the government of President Hamid Karzai.
Several government buildings, including the provincial courthouse, were badly damaged in the clashes, officials said, adding that the Taliban fighters used explosives, assault rifles, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades.
More than 90 people were reported wounded in the assault on the city of Farah, capital of Farah province. Police said all nine of the attackers died in the fighting, either in exchanges of fire with security forces or by detonating suicide vests they were wearing.
The death toll was the heaviest in many months in Afghanistan, where the radical Islamist Taliban movement is fighting to drive out foreign troops and topple the government of President Hamid Karzai.
Several government buildings, including the provincial courthouse, were badly damaged in the clashes, officials said, adding that the Taliban fighters used explosives, assault rifles, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades.
