Encounter still on near Indian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif

Troops battled Monday to end an hours-long gun and bomb siege near the Indian consulate in Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif city, after a bloody weekend assault on an air base in India near the Pakistan border. Separately Monday a suicide bomber struck near Kabul’s international airport, underscoring the worsening security situation in Afghanistan.

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.

Gunfights and grenade explosions echoed as commandos battled to flush out militants holed up in a building near the consulate, with powerful provincial Governor Atta Mohammad Noor overseeing the operation.

“The attackers are enemies of Afghanistan who do not want peace,” Noor told reporters. “We will suppress them as soon as possible.” But nearly 17 hours after the siege began, security officials said they were proceeding cautiously in the residential area to limit civilian casualties. An Indian official, who was hunkered down in a secure area within the diplomatic enclave, said all consulate employees were safe.

“We are being attacked,” the official told agencies from inside the heavily guarded compound soon after the fighting erupted late Sunday evening. Local police said some consulate employees had been evacuated. The spurt in violence came about a week after Modi paid a surprise visit to Pakistan, the first by an Indian PM in 11 years. The visit immediately followed a whirlwind tour of Kabul, where Modi inaugurated an Indian-built parliament complex and gave three Russian-made helicopters to the Afghan government.