Gunmen stormed the headquarters of an worldwide charity in the heart of Kabul and then battled police in an 11-hour standoff before being killed Tuesday morning, the Afghan government said.
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Three attackers were killed.
Pamlarena means care in Pashto, but it was unclear if the assault was on the worldwide charity CARE.
The violence comes more than a week after 16 people were killed when militants stormed the American University in Kabul.
September 7: The United States has reaffirmed its strong support to Afghanistan following the deadly attacks in capital Kabul targeting a CARE International NGO.
The violent episode highlighted the unstable security situation in Kabul just a month before a conference in Brussels where worldwide donors are expected to vow to keep providing financial support to Afghanistan.
A terrorist attack at American University of Afghanistan in Kabul on Aug.24 had killed 13 people and similar attack against peaceful demonstrators in Kabul on July 23 claimed almost the lives of 80 people.
The attack on the charity had been preceded by twin Taliban blasts that killed at least 24 people during the city’s rush hour Monday, including high-level officials, and left 91 others wounded.
Security sources said the third blast was caused by a vehicle packed with explosives.
The attackers were holed up inside a building belonging to the charity Care International, Sediqqi said, adding that one civilian had been killed and six others wounded in the attack. Another official said the deputy head of President Ashraf Ghani’s personal protection force had also been killed.
The Taliban later claimed responsibility for that attack.
The Associated Press reported that a district police chief and an army general were among those people killed in the attack.
Mohammad Radmanish, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told Anadolu Agency more lives were lost when police and civilians rushed to the site of the first blast and the second bomber then blew himself up.
But Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a public policy research group in Washington, said any friction between Afghanistan and Pakistan “should not be an excuse by Kabul not to focus on improving politics and [good] governance”.
The increase in violence in the capital comes as the Taliban step up nationwide attacks, underscoring the worsening security situation since North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces ended their combat mission at the end of 2014.
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Outside Kabul, the insurgents have stepped up their military campaign, threatening Lashkar Gah, capital of the strategic southern province of Helmand, as well as Kunduz, the northern city they briefly took a year ago.
