Briton among victims of suicide attack by Taliban

KABUL — A brazen Taliban attack that targeted the Kabul offices of a British security company killed five of its staffers, including a British national, the company said Thursday. Afghan authorities said a sixth person was also killed in the assault.

Charlie Burbridge, managing director of G4S Risk Management Group, said 32 employees of the company were also wounded in the attack, five of them seriously.

“Our thoughts at this difficult time are with the loved ones of those who have died and been injured, and our brave team in Afghanistan who have lost colleagues and friends,” Burbridge said in a statement.

The attack started with a suicide bomber who rammed his explosive-packed truck into the gate of the G4S compound in eastern Kabul on Wednesday evening, followed by an hourslong gunbattle with insurgents armed with grenades and automatic rifles who stormed the compound building.

The Taliban, who claimed responsibility for the attack, said it was in retaliation for a U.S. air strike in southern Helmand province hours earlier that killed 30 people, many of them civilians.

Afghan officials revised the initial number of 10 reported killed in the Kabul assault to six. The public health ministry spokesman, Wahid Majroh, said four attackers had also died, leading to the confusion, but he did not identify any of the casualties.

The suicide blast left a giant crater in its wake and blew out windows in nearby buildings.

Jan Agha, a police officer at the site of the explosion Thursday, recalled the gunbattle that lasted into the night as ambulances ferried the victims to hospitals amid the chaos.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the insurgents had killed 10 foreigners.