The attack, the second in the city this week, also left four International Organization for Migration workers wounded, including an Italian woman badly burned by a grenade. Thirteen police were wounded while all six attackers died in the assault, authorities said.[break]
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the assault on a guest house used by the IOM in an upscale neighbourhood of Kabul, a relatively uncommon operation by the group targeting an international aid group.
At the chaotic scene of the siege, dozens of Afghan police took cover behind blast walls and rushed around through a thick cloud of smoke made by the bomb. At least one wounded officer was seen being helped away by his comrades.
The insurgents have unleashed a wave of bombings and assassinations around the country, testing Afghan security forces’ ability to respond with reduced help from international forces, who have begun a withdrawal that will see most foreign troops gone by the end of 2014.
The attackers stormed into the building with grenade launchers after blasting open the compound’s gate with the car bomb, Mr. Salangi said. He said police were able to evacuate the guest house with none of the residents killed.
From when the initial blast shook much of the city in the late afternoon until well past nightfall, fighting was still going on in the upscale Shahr-i-Now neighbourhood, home to several international groups’ fortified compounds as well as the headquarters of the Afghan Public Protection Force and a hospital run by the National Directorate for Security.
The IOM is an inter-governmental organization based in Geneva that helps resettle people worldwide. It operates in Afghanistan in a mission co-ordinated by the UN but is not an agency of the world body.
Last Thursday in Kabul, a suicide car bomber killed six Americans, including two soldiers, and nine Afghan bystanders in an attack on a U.S. convoy. Another insurgent faction, Hizb-i-Islami, claimed responsibility for that bombing.
Militants have staged dramatic assaults in the past on Afghan security and international targets in the capital, but the two months before that had been relatively calm there.
As the Taliban spring offensive gets under way, however, it will test the Afghan forces’ ability to maintain security now that international combat forces are pulling back ahead of the 2014 withdrawal.
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