The Taliban bombed a British embassy vehicle in the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday morning, killing five people, and attacked a foreign compound in the city center in the evening, officials and witnesses said.
The suicide attack on the car in the east of the Afghan capital killed two embassy workers, one Briton and one Afghan, and wounded more than 30 others nearby, Reuters quoted officials as saying.
A second blast, at a compound run by a contractor for the US aid agency in Afghanistan, shook buildings in the diplomatic quarter and was followed by an intense hour-long gun battle between insurgents and Afghan security forces.
A foreign national was injured and two suicide bombers were killed in the second attack, which started when a car loaded with explosives detonated outside the compound just after 7 p.m., according to security officials.
Hours later, blasts and gunfire continued sporadically and coalition helicopters flew overhead, assisting with efforts to clear the area of at least one more suicide bomber, according to security sources.
A Western security official said the explosion failed to breach the compound walls, which were well fortified. The area was reported clear by about 1 a.m. on Friday morning, local time.
Thursday’s incidents were the latest in a wave of bombings to hit the city as the majority of foreign combat troops prepare to withdraw from the country by the end of the year.
Taliban insurgents, who were ousted from power by a US-led coalition in 2001, claimed responsibility for both attacks, saying the embassy car bomb “targeted foreign invading forces”, while the compound was an “important center of the enemy”.
