Afghan suicide bombers strike in coordinated attacks, killing 3

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan security forces foiled an apparent suicide bomber in central Kabul on Sunday morning but attackers struck police and intelligence offices in two other eastern cities, killing three people, officials said.

Officers with the National Directorate of Security shot and killed a suicide bomber who was driving a sport-utility vehicle packed with explosives on a road leading to one of the intelligence agency’s offices in Kabul’s Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, officials said. The area also houses several diplomatic missions.

Mohammad Ayoob Salangi, Kabul’s police chief, said security forces later defused the car bomb and that no officers or civilians were killed in the incident. Afghan news agencies reported that the intelligence office was the target.

The incidents appeared to be coordinated and broke a monthlong spell of calm in Kabul, the capital. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attempted attack in Kabul but the Taliban, through a spokesman, said they were behind the two other bombings.

Earlier Sunday morning, a suicide car bomber ran his vehicle into an entrance gate at an NDS compound in the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing two guards and wounding three more, said the provincial police chief, Abdullah Stanikzai.

In the eastern province of Logar, a minivan packed with explosives detonated near a police headquarters in the Pul-e-Alam district, killing one Afghan police officer and wounding two more, said Din Mohammad Darwish, a spokesman for the provincial governor. The minivan was detonated by remote control, Darwish said.

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Baktash is a special correspondent.