16 dead in attack on Afghan construction company

March 6 (UPI) -- An attack Wednesday morning on a private construction company working at an airport in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, killed 16 employees and left nine others wounded.

Two perpetrators detonated suicide vests and three others were killed during a seven-hour firefight with security personnel at the EBE Company starting at about 5 a.m., Attaulah Khoghyani, a spokesman for the Nangarhar governor, told TOLO News.

The wounded employees, two of whom are listed in critical condition, were transported to a local hospital. Khoghyani said authorities managed to disable a vehicle filled with explosives and two other suicide vests.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but government forces recently attacked Taliban and Islamic State positions.

Khogyani told Pajhwok Afghan News that on Tuesday night, the National Directorate of Security conducted a raid in Gandomak where 11 were killed, including the Taliban's shadow district chief of the Chaparhar district in Nangarhar.

He said that security forces confiscated light and heavy weapons, mines, motorcycles, and 700 kilograms of explosives. They also dismantled a laboratory.

In another security force action, seven Islamic State militants were killed and two of the terrorists' training centers destroyed during an operation in the Khogyani district, the Selab Military Corps said in a statement.