Two suicide bombers attacked a residential area of central Kabul today, killing at least three people, police and security sources said.
One police source said at least one of the bombers had blown himself up. Another said a guesthouse used by foreigners had been the target.
A government security source said the bodies of at least three Afghans could be seen close to the site of the attack. The source said the target appeared to be an American company but had no further details.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said it was not clear what the target was.
“There have been casualties but I do not know how many people, whether Afghan or foreigners,” he told Reuters.
“It was a suicide attack. The situation is under control,” Bashary said.
Another police source said it was not clear whether the second bomber had blown himself up, been captured or was still at large.
The attack came only hours after the United Nations mission in Afghanistan released a report that said civilian casualties had risen 31 per cent in the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 2009.
More than three-quarters of those casualties were blamed on the Taliban and other insurgents battling foreign forces and the Afghan government.
Violence across Afghanistan has reached its highest levels since the Taliban were ousted by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, with the death toll for foreign troops also hitting record levels.
Some 150,000 foreign troops are squared off against the insurgents.
A suicide bomber killed four Afghans in an attack apparently aimed at a convoy of foreign forces in Kabul on July 18, and insurgents embarrassed Afghan officials by firing rockets at a major peace conference in the capital in June.
In February, two suicide bombers killed 14 people and wounded 32 when they blew themselves up near Kabul’s biggest shopping centre and a hotel.
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