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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn this March 9, 2016, file photo, smoke rises from a building where Taliban insurgents hid during a fire fight with Afghan security forces in Helmand province, Afghanistan. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Cliff Owen\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sher Jan Durrani, spokesman for the police chief of Balkh province, said early Friday that a gun battle was going on at the consulate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walter Hassmann, the German ambassador to Afghanistan, confirmed the “incident is ongoing” and provided no further details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mazar-i-Sharif is the capital of Balkh province and one of the most important cities in the country. Residents in the city reported hearing a huge explosion near the consulate that shattered windows in buildings nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany has 983 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, as part of NATO’s Resolute Support mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Taliban’s insurgency has spread from their southern heartland across the country in the past two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Taliban statement from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack was retaliation for recent airstrikes in the northern city of Kunduz, capital of the province of the same name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A U.S. airstrike earlier this month killed dozens of people, including women and children, and is under investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Germany’s consulate in northern Afghanistan was attacked late Thursday when a suicide car bomber rammed the compound, a senior police official said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":97883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":62,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12,62],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1355],"class_list":["post-61085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"6WUJJWZSXZG7THDJOGF3BQQGGY","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2016\/11\/10\/german-consulate-in-northern-afghanistan-comes-under-attack\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n