Taliban attack near Spanish embassy in Afghanistan kills 6

After launching a deadly assault on a foreign guesthouse near the Spanish embassy in Kabul, Afghan officials say all four gunmen involved in the attack have been killed.

Four Afghan and two Spanish police officers were killed in the suicide attack at a guest house near the embassy, officials said.

Spain said one of its police officers was killed in the bombing.

“A auto bomb hit Sherpur but the exact target is not immediately clear”, said CID chief Fraidoon Obaidi.

But Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy said the attack was directed at the embassy guesthouse, not the embassy building itself.

Hours later, the U.N. Security Council issued a condemnation that said an Afghan policeman had been killed as well.

The powerful blast, which sent a thick plume of smoke into the sky, was followed by multiple explosions throughout the night, as well as sporadic bursts of gunfire.

The latest in a series of attacks on foreign targets in Kabul began on Friday evening when a suicide attacker detonated a auto bomb near the guest house, clearing the way for the other three attackers to infiltrate into the compound.

The wealthy enclave of Sherpur is home to several foreign NGOs and the residences of senior government officials, including controversial former warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, Afghanistan’s first vice-president.

Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and the USA government are trying to draw the Taliban back into peace talks 14 years after an invasion that has killed more than 2,200 American soldiers and cost taxpayers more than $700 billion.

The resignation of Rahmatullah Nabil on Thursday highlights the domestic backlash Ghani faces over his attempts to fix strained relations with Islamabad.

“Without positive support from Pakistan, won’t the war in Afghanistan keep dragging on? You answer me”, Mr Ghani told a press conference on Friday.

But the Taliban rebuffed his remarks.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said US personnel in Kabul assisted the Afghans in responding to the explosion.

“Expecting us to surrender and come for talks is foolishness”.