TROOPS battled yesterday 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 yesterday 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 archrival 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.

    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.

    (SD-Agencies)