Team of suicide bombers target Afghan officials

A TEAM of six suicide bombers, some wearing explosive vests, stormed a provincial governor's compound in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing 22 people in the latest high-profile attack to target prominent Afghan government officials.

The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack in the Parwan provincial capital of Charikar, 30 miles north of Kabul.

Yesterday's assault began with a car bomb outside the front gate, police said. The blast blew a hole in the wall, allowing five insurgents wearing suicide vests and carrying automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades to rush into the compound.

Afghan police said they killed three of the attackers as they approached the governor's house.

The attack took place during a high-level provincial security meeting attended by Parwan governor Abdul Basir Salangi, his police chief, intelligence director, a local army commander and at least two Nato advisers.

Mr Salangi said that he and his aides fired back and claimed to have killed at least one of the insurgents himself.

"I had an AK-47. I shot him and from the window of my waiting room," said Mr Salangi, who was formerly the police chief of Kabul and was a rebel fighter during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

He said it was the second time in a month he had been targeted.