Mazar-i-Sharif: Gunfights near India's Afghan consulate, suicide bomber strikes near Kabul's international airport

QUICK PILL

• Separately Monday a suicide bomber struck near Kabul\'s international airport, underscoring the worsening security situation in Afghanistan.

• The lethal assaults on Indian targets appear aimed at derailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi\'s bold diplomatic outreach to arch-rival Pakistan following his first official visit to Afghanistan last month.

Troops battled on Monday to end a 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 border with Pakistan.

Separately Monday a suicide bomber struck near Kabul's international airport, underscoring the worsening security situation in Afghanistan.

The lethal assaults on Indian targets appear aimed at derailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's bold diplomatic outreach to arch-rival Pakistan following his first official visit to Afghanistan last month.

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."

Indian officials safe:

AFP

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 AFP by telephone from inside the heavily-guarded compound soon after the fighting erupted late Sunday evening.

The attack followed a raid over the weekend by suspected Islamist 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 further firing Sunday.

It was not clear Monday whether any surviving attackers remained inside the base but troops were checking the area.

"The operation continues at the base. (With) intermittent firing... we are moving step by step to sanitise the area," an army spokesperson in Pathankot said.

"It's too early to say when the operation will be over."

Officials suspect the gunmen belong to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, the group that staged the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament which brought the two countries to the brink of war.

The brazen attack was apparently aimed at undermining the fragile peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Proxy war:

AFP

The spike in violence came about a week after Modi paid a surprise visit to Pakistan, the first by an Indian premier 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.

India has been a key supporter of Kabul's post-Taliban government, and analysts have often pointed to the threat of a "proxy war" in Afghanistan between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan -- the historic backer of the Taliban -- has long been accused of assisting the insurgents, especially with attacks on Indian targets in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have also stepped up attacks on government and foreign targets in Afghanistan, a year after US-led NATO forces formally ended their combat mission in the country.

"A suicide bomber in a Toyota sedan detonated his vehicle... near Kabul airport" on Monday, said interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.

"Fortunately only the attacker was killed," he added, clarifying an earlier ministry statement that the bomber was on foot.

The latest unrest coincides with a renewed international push to revive peace talks with the resurgent militant movement.

On January 11 Afghanistan and Pakistan are set to hold a first round of dialogue also involving the US and China to try to lay out a comprehensive roadmap for peace.

Pakistan, which wields considerable influence over the Afghan Taliban, hosted a milestone first round of talks in July. But the negotiations stalled when the insurgents belatedly confirmed the death of longtime leader Mullah Omar.

The attack on the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif was the latest on high-profile Indian targets in Afghanistan.

In 2008 a car bomb at the Indian embassy in Kabul killed 60 people and the facility was again hit by a suicide strike in 2009.

Nine civilians, including seven children, were killed in August 2013 when suicide bombers targeted the Indian consulate in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

AFP via PTI