A Taliban truck bomb and gun attack killed nine people in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday, destroying the entrance to a Nato supply company's compound in the latest insurgent assault to shake peace efforts. Four Nepalese, one Briton and one Romanian were among those killed in the bombing, which followed a series of recent Taliban suicide attacks targeting the Supreme Court, the airport and the presidential palace.
The US has been pushing for peace talks as 100,000 Nato combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan next year and local security forces take on the fight against the Islamist extremists. "Four Nepalese guards, one Afghan guard and two Afghan civilians have been killed," Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi told AFP after the attack, which started at about 4:30 am (midnight GMT).
The British embassy said one male British national had also died, giving no further details, while the Romanian mission said a male civilian contractor was killed and another wounded. An AFP photographer saw a badly shaken guard with bloody face wounds and a bandage wrapped around his head being helped from the site outside the compound of the Dubai-based Supreme Group.
The group provides many Nato bases with food, water, fuel and other supplies, as well as maintaining military storage buildings and accommodation. Its compound is close to UN offices and several Nato bases. Salangi said the attack began with a suicide bomb in a large truck, and two or three insurgents then fought guards for about 30-40 minutes. All the attackers were killed. The bomb left a large crater in the ground, and reduced walls and a guard post to a pile of rubble and twisted steel. Police said some suicide vests were later detonated by security forces.