THE Taliban mounted a brazen bomb and gun attack on the Afghan parliament yesterday as it met to receive the country’s new defence minister.

A woman and a child were killed during the assault, which began when a suicide bomber detonated a car outside the parliament gates. Dramatic pictures from the scene showed a pall of smoke in the parliament’s main chamber, and MPs stumbling for the exits.

“A suicide bomber blew himself up just outside the parliament building and several fighters took positions in a building close to parliament,” said Ebadullah Karimi, a police spokesman in the capital Kabul.

Attacks on high-profile targets in Kabul have become commonplace in recent weeks. Last month, 14 people, mostly foreigners including one Briton, were killed in an attack on a guesthouse.

The Taliban have also managed to encroach into two provinces they have fought over for years – Helmand and Kunduz — since British and American forces withdrew last year. In Helmand, the Taliban last week managed to seize part of Musa Qala, the town where a number of British troops died in 2006-7 when it was the site of a number of battles. In Kunduz in the north, the Taliban seized two districts in two days – Chardara on Sunday and Dasht-e-Archi yesterday.

Yesterday’s attack on parliament took place when the chamber was in a televised session, with the new defence minister, Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, about to make an appearance.

The building was seen shaking as the speaker, Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, attempted to keep calm. His suggestion that the building had suffered an “electrical fault” was belied by the dust pouring into building as the furniture swayed alarmingly.

The security forces responded quickly, and prevented any of the six gunmen who followed up on the suicide bombing from entering the building itself.

Two gunmen were killed on sight, officials said, and four more in the subsequent shoot-out after retreating to another nearby building. Before that, they had managed to fire rocket-propelled grenades at the building.

As well as the woman and child who were killed, 40 people were injured, including five women and three children. The attack was immediately claimed by the Taliban. “We have launched an attack on parliament as there was an important gathering to introduce the country’s defence minister,” its spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told reporters by telephone. The group had rejected suggestions of a ceasefire during the Muslim fasting month, Ramadan.

Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, said: “Those conducting such terrorist attacks are criminals who fail to obey the laws or Islam.”