10 die as Red Cross, governor's offices attacked

At least 10 people were killed on Wednesday in two separate incidents when assailants targeted the offices of the Red Cross in the east and a governor's compound in central Afghanistan. In the first attack of its kind, the offices of the International Committee for the Red Cross in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, were the target of an assault by two suicide bombers.
Both the assailants blew themselves up. One Afghan security guard at the compound was killed in the bombing, while another was injured in the attack, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told dpa. "Seven foreigners who were inside the compound at the time of the attack were evacuated by the police safely. One foreigner was slightly wounded during the attack," he said.
Sediqqi said the first bomber blew himself up at the gate while the second one got inside the compound. After a gunfight with police, the second bomber also blew himself up, ending the attack. No one took responsibility for the attack. The ICRC has been working in Afghanistan for decades, and has a strong reputation for neutrality, even among the Taliban and other armed groups.
Insurgent groups have often received help from the humanitarian organisation, especially for transporting injured combatants and locating people in jails or who have disappeared. Last month, the Red Cross warned that security across Afghanistan was deteriorating and the "proliferation and fragmentation" of groups fighting in the conflict has increasingly hindered humanitarian groups from providing basic services to civilians. "Things are not getting easier," Gherardo Pontrandolfi, the head of humanitarian organisation's delegation had told reporters in Kabul. "To have safe access to certain areas of the country, we have to multiply contacts at all levels with different armed groups, different command structures, and shifting alliances."
Wednesday's attack on the ICRC comes just five days after Taliban suicide bombers attacked the UN-affiliated International Organisation for Migration, killing two Afghan civilians and one police officer. In another incident on Wednesday, six suicide bombers and a policemen were killed in a pre-dawn attack on a governor's compound in northern Afghanistan.