Taliban suicide attack inside ministry kills 5
A Taliban suicide attacker blew himself up inside the information and culture ministry building in the Afghan capital Thursday, killing at least five people and wounding several more, police said.
The bomb exploded in a conference room underneath the office of the minister, Abdul Karim Khoram, but he was not in the building at the time, ministry spokesman Hameed Nasiri Wardak told AFP.
"I can say that the target was the minister," he said. Khoram was badly wounded in a suicide blast in the southern city of Kandahar in May.
The Islamic Taliban, who were in power in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, are waging an insurgency against the Western-backed government that has seen a record number of attacks this year, leaving hundreds dead.
The attacker had first shot dead a guard at the entrance to the compound, deputy Kabul police chief General Alishah Ahmadzai told AFP.
"Apparently the attacker first shot and killed the policeman at the gate as he wanted to search him and then he walked to the conference hall, which is metres away from the main gate, and detonated his explosives," he said.
"Three people were martyred immediately at the spot. Two others who were critically wounded died of their wounds in hospitals," he said.
The dead were four men and a woman, Ahmadzai said, without being able to say who they all were.
"In total 23 wounded were taken to different hospitals in the city," health ministry spokesman Abdullah Fahim told AFP, confirming two had died in hospital.
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