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| Talibans attack in Afghan |
The Taliban claimed responsibility
for the early morning attack in an area in the north of Kabul used by a number
of foreign companies supplying NATO forces in Afghanistan.
A Reuters witness said he saw the
bodies of two people being carried away, although it was not clear if they were
those of the attackers or of other victims.
Violence is escalating across
Afghanistan as NATO-led combat troops prepare to leave by the end of 2014.
Kabul police chief General Ayoub
Salangi said two truck drivers working for the foreign logistics company and
four Nepalese guards were killed in the attack. Three other employees were
wounded, he said.
Atiqullah, a 54-year-old truck
driver for the company, said at least four co-workers had been wounded in the
attack.
The attack began when one of the
insurgents drove an explosives-laden truck into a vehicle bay in the compound
north of Kabul airport, detonating an explosion that left a crater six meters
(20 feet) deep and about 15 meters wide.
"It made a hole the size of a
pool," Salangi said.
Three other attackers then engaged
in a gunfight with Afghan security forces for up to an hour before they were
killed, Salangi said. Three vests packed with explosives were recovered from
the scene, he said.
"I woke up to go for Morning
Prayer and suddenly there was a very heavy explosion followed by gunfire,"
said Atiqullah, who uses only one name.
"We escaped from the compound
and went to another company nearby. Security forces came in 30 minutes and
rescued us," he said.
The Taliban, in an emailed
statement from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the
attack and said its fighters had entered what it described as "an
important foreign base and logistics warehouse".
The Islamist group routinely
exaggerates the impact of such attacks.
It was the latest in a series of
high-profile assaults by insurgents in Kabul.
It came a week after Taliban
fighters managed to penetrate the most secure area of Kabul and attack
buildings in an area that includes the palace of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
On Monday, Afghanistan's main
intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said they had
arrested a man in Kabul carrying a suicide vest and an automatic rifle who had
planned to attack one of their compounds.
Another would-be suicide attacker,
a Pakistani citizen, was also arrested in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad
on Monday, police said.