Gunmen storm Afghan government building

Smoke rises from the Afghan traffic police headquarters in Khost. Photograph: Rasool Adil/AFP/Getty Images

At least three Afghan police officers have been killed after gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed a government building in eastern Afghanistan.

Three or four men armed with assault rifles and wearing explosives strapped to their bodies shot their way into a compound that houses the traffic department, on the edge of Khost.

They killed a police guard as they entered and then took over the second floor of the building, from which they shot at police and soldiers outside, said General Raz Mohammad Oryakhail, the army commander for Khost province.

Afghan security forces surrounded the compound, and officials believed some of the attackers were dead. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

In southern Afghanistan, US forces shot a governor's spokesman in the foot as he arrived for work.

Zalmai Ayubi said he had been shot for no reason. Nato said Ayubi had grappled with a guard as he "attempted to physically bypass security" at the Kandahar governor's office. It said an investigation had begun.

On Saturday, a Taliban suicide bomber on a mission to target foreign-run medical teams killed at least six Afghan medical students and wounded 23 others after infiltrating Kabul's main military hospital. No foreign medical doctors or nurses were among the dead or wounded.

Nato and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, condemned the bombing. The UN called it a violation of international humanitarian law.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks as part of their spring offensive against Nato, Afghan government installations and officials. Insurgents also have promised revenge attacks after the killing of Osama bin Laden by US forces in Pakistan this month.

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/22/gunmen-storm-afghan-government-building

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