Suicide Attack Kills Five in Afghan Capital

KABUL, Oct. 30 -- At least five people were killed and 21 seriously wounded Thursday after three assailants mounted a well-coordinated attack on an Afghan government building in the center of the capital.

The attack occurred about 11 a.m. as dozens of employees at the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture in Kabul were just beginning their workday. Witnesses said that the first attacker shot two security officers near the building's entrance before detonating an explosives vest in a small hall on the ground floor that is normally used for news conferences. The other two attackers -- one dressed in an Afghan police uniform -- made their way to separate parts of the building.

The Taliban asserted responsibility, saying the bombing was meant to target foreign advisers working at the ministry. The attack marked the first major suicide strike in the Afghan capital in nearly four months and signaled another downward shift in security in this city of 3 million. In July, more than 50 people were killed and nearly 150 injured here after suicide bombers struck the Indian Embassy.

Abdul Haider Qayumi, a ministry worker, said he was on the second floor of the building Thursday when he heard first the sound of gunfire from a Kalashnikov rifle and then a deafening boom. "The whole place was covered in dust and black smoke. We couldn't even see each other, the dust was so thick," Qayumi said. "Then the only sound we heard was a voice on a loudspeaker telling us to evacuate the building because a suicide bomber was still loose inside."

Ali Shah Ahmadi, Kabul's deputy police chief, said one of the would-be bombers was arrested before he could detonate his explosives vest. But nearly two hours after the building was evacuated following the first blast, the third assailant remained at large, he said.

The blast collapsed one wall of the building and blew out most of its windows. Several shops and a nearby kindergarten were also destroyed in the explosion.

The bombing Thursday comes after several recent attacks on foreign and high-profile targets in and around the capital. Two weeks ago, a South African-British aid worker was shot dead by two men on a motorbike as she walked to work from her home in the western end of the city. The Taliban asserted responsibility for that attack also, saying the woman, Gayle Williams, worked for a Christian aid organization that was trying to convert Afghan Muslims to Christianity. Officials with SERVE, the charity Williams worked for, denied that the organization is involved in proselytizing.

The recent spate of violence in Kabul has posed a challenge for the newly appointed interior minister, Hanif Atmar. A veteran of the Soviet-era secret police force, Atmar was tapped by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up the country's security services amid concern that corruption in the upper echelons of the ministry has contributed to the growing sense of instability.

Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.