KABUL'S GROWING security crisis was graphically exposed yesterday when a suicide bomber breached the heavily-guarded information ministry building and blew himself up, killing five people and wounding about 20 others.
The blast, a rare assault on a high-security site, destroyed the building's entrance. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Islamist group, said foreign advisers in the ministry were the targets of the attack.
He said there were three attackers in all. They threw grenades at ministry guards and opened fire on them before advancing into the building, where one of the militants detonated the explosive belt he was wearing.
The blast damaged part of the first floor of the ministry, which is several hundred metres from the presidential palace in central Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai said the violence was an attempt by extremists to destabilise diplomatic overtures towards opposition groups. "Our enemies are trying to undermine the recent efforts by the government for a peaceful solution to end the violence," Mr Karzai said.
But the insurgency, and its recent proliferation in Kabul, is just one of a number of acute problems facing the Afghan authorities. Today, a leading British security think tank will warn that a food crisis poses an even greater threat than the insurgents.
An estimated 8.4 million Afghans, as much as a third of the population, face famine this winter, the Royal United Services Institute warns. - ( Guardian service)