Deadly raid on UK Kabul compound

19 August 2011 Last updated at 05:16 ET

Suicide attackers have stormed the British Council office in the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing at least nine people and taking over the compound.

After a suicide car bomb destroyed the compound wall, a number of heavily armed men forced their way inside.

Gunfire can still be heard in the area, which was rocked by another explosion several hours after the attack began.

The Taliban said the attack marked the anniversary of Afghanistan’s independence from the UK in 1919.

The UK Foreign Office has condemned the attack, and said all British citizens had safely been removed from the building.

Eight Afghan policemen and a foreign security official were killed, authorities said, adding that four attackers also died.

Several hours after the attack began, Afghan intelligence officials said a lone injured gunman was still holding out.

“We tried to kill him by placing explosives around his location, but he is using an area with armoured doors and glass,” the official told the BBC.

The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul reports that occupants of the British Council building may have taken refuge in a reinforced safe room in the compound during the attack.

Wall collapsed

Friday’s strike was a three-phase attack, intelligence sources told the BBC: First, a suicide attacker detonated his explosive vest at a main square in western Kabul where police were guarding a key intersection shortly after 05:30 (01:30 GMT).

Ten minutes later, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle outside the front gate of the British Council, collapsing a wall which allowed the attackers into the compound.

There are fears that a number of Afghan policemen may have been buried in the rubble.

As the area was evacuated, local shopkeepers say as many as nine suicide attackers armed with rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and AK 47s started firing as they ran towards the British Council building.

They have exchanged fire with police for hours and sporadic gunfire can still be heard in the area, residents say.

Police sources earlier told the BBC they believed the suicide attackers had “brought enough weapons to fight for a day”.

British and US forces arrived at the scene shortly after the attack and Afghan police were providing support, Kabul officials told the BBC.

The British Council is a partly government-funded agency which runs mainly cultural programmes.

The Afghan authorities earlier stepped up security in the capital, amid fears an attack could be imminent on the public holiday.

However, the Taliban have recently shown that they can strike pretty much anywhere in Afghanistan, our correspondent, Quentin Sommerville, says.

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