U.S. Compound in Kabul Hit by Suicide Attack

KABUL--A suicide bomber attacked a compound used by U.S. counternarcotics advisers in Kabul on Tuesday, killing five foreign guards in the latest insurgent strike in the Afghan capital.

The attacker, wearing a guard uniform, was allowed to drive a motorcycle through the first checkpoint into a fortified camp and blew himself up at the gate of a secured compound inside it called Camp Gibson, not far from the capital's airport, Afghan and foreign officials said.

Foreign advisers to the nearby Afghan counternarcotics department, including U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials, live in Camp Gibson, which shares an entrance with offices of DynCorp International Inc., one of the largest U.S. defense contractors in Afghanistan.

The fatalities were all guards: Indian, Nepali, Fijian and Kenyan citizens, said an official from the U.S.-led military coalition. The explosion was surprisingly powerful, injuring 11 more people. "There was a lot packed on the back of the motorcycle," the official said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the targets were foreign spies.

It is unclear why the attacker was allowed through the first gate despite strict security checks. Some employees of Camp Gibson said they believe he worked there as a guard, something Afghan officials deny.

"You need to show a badge to get inside," said an employee of Camp Gibson. "This wasn't just somebody from outside, he worked there."

Samir Delsoz, who owns a shop opposite the camp, said that at around 6:30 a.m. local time he saw a man in a uniform on a motorbike driving slowly back-and-forth outside the gate.

"He looked suspicious to me, he even glared at me. And then he entered the camp," recalls Mr. Delsoz. "I was relaxing on a bed in my shop when suddenly I heard a big boom. The windows shattered and I injured my leg." He said that when he ran outside, he saw smoke rising from inside the camp.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul condemned the attack: "Attacks like this will not deter the Afghan people and the international community from continuing to work together to further the development of Afghanistan."

Tuesday's attack comes less than a week after Taliban fighters took over a building under construction to launch an attack on Kabul's international airport. Afghan forces killed the militants before they were able to cause damage to the facility. Two days earlier, a car bomb ripped through a market in a town in eastern Afghanistan, killing as many as 89 people in one of the worst attacks on civilians during the 13-year war.

The violence comes as U.S. and United Nations officials are helping Afghanistan overcome a political crisis sparked by a disputed election. Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah rejected preliminary results that showed his rival, Ashraf Ghani, in the lead, saying widespread fraud took place in the June 14 runoff.

Under a deal brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry, the two candidates agreed to full audit of the more-than-eight-million ballots monitored by their agents and independent observers under the supervision of the U.N.

Six days into the recount, the audit was facing trouble, with the process taking much longer than anticipated and no agreement between the two camps on how to nullify fraudulent votes. Underscoring their differences, the audit was stopped for a second time on Tuesday, when agents of Mr. Ghani again walked out of the vote count over a disagreement with their opponents, said members of Mr. Abdullah's team.

James Dobbins, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said he was confident the two teams were close to an agreement on the audit criteria and that the pace of the recount would speed up.

"We anticipated that given the complexity of the process in the first few days there going to be questions that arose that needed to be addressed," Mr. Dobbins told reporters in Kabul on Tuesday. "Both candidates have explicitly and unqualifiedly agreed to accept the results of the audit, and we anticipate that they will do so."

As part of the deal brokered by Mr. Kerry, the two candidates agreed to set up a unity government that would include the losing camp. The two camps are currently negotiating the details of this political framework.

Write to Margherita Stancati at [e-mail]

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