Afghanistan and Indian security forces on Wednesday killed a team of suicide bombers who targeted the Indian consulate in the eastern city of Jalalabad, following an attack in which at least six people were wounded, officials said.
A bomb in a car driven by one of the attackers was detonated near the Indian consulate, shattering doors and windows and destroying at least eight cars as explosions and gunfire rocked the area, witnesses said.
But the four attackers were killed before being able to enter the consulate compound, said Attahullah Khugyani, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province.
“Their target was the Indian consulate, but our forces shot and killed them all before they reached their target,” he said.
“Our consulate has been targeted but everyone is safe,” MEA spokesman Vikas Swarup said.
The head of the public health department in Nangarhar, Najibullah Kamawal, said at least six people had been wounded in the attack.
No militant group has so far claimed responsibility for the ongoing assault. India’s consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif was also attacked by insurgents in January.
The area, also home to other diplomatic missions, has repeatedly come under attack in recent months.
In January, Islamic State jihadists claimed responsibility for a deadly gun and bomb siege targeting the nearby Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad, the first major attack by the group in an Afghan city.
Nangarhar, of which Jalalabad is the capital, faces an emerging threat from loyalists of the Islamic State group, which controls territory across Syria and Iraq and is making gradual inroads in Afghanistan — challenging the Taliban on their own turf.