Taliban claims Afghan attack that killed five

KABUL, Afghanistan A Taliban suicide squad stormed the compound of a U.S.-based development group in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least three expatriate workers, a security guard and an Afghan police officer, officials said.

All six attackers also died in the predawn assault in the city of Kunduz. One died when he blew up a sport-utility vehicle at the compound’s gates at the outset of the strike, and the other five died in a subsequent gunbattle, according to provincial police.

The provincial governor, Mohammed Omar, identified the three slain foreigners as from Germany, Britain and the Philippines, and German officials confirmed the death of one of their nationals.

Friday’s attack -- which coincided with the arrival in Kabul of the new American commander of Western forces, Gen. David Petraeus -- took place at a compound belonging to the Washington, D.C.-based Development Alternatives, Inc. The company is working under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

Development Alternatives’ website says its work centers on community economic development and promoting better governance.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, said some wounded civilians were treated at a nearby military base, but did not specify their numbers, nationalities or the seriousness of their injuries. It also said coalition troops had assisted Afghan forces responding to the attack, but provided no details.

Such coordinated and determined insurgent strikes on foreign non-military targets are relatively rare, especially in Afghanistan’s once-quiet north. But the Taliban movement -- which claimed responsibility for Friday’s strike -- has made it clear that international aid organizations are not immune from being targeted.

Five United Nations staffers were killed in October last year when insurgents stormed a guesthouse in Kabul, the capital, and an Afghan U.N. staffer died this week when attackers shot up a U.N. vehicle at a busy Kabul traffic circle.

The Kunduz provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Razaq Yaqoubi, said police responded quickly to the attack, which began at 3:30 a.m., but that gunfire raged until about 9:30 a.m. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the compound was a “special forces training center.”

Hampering international development has emerged as a major element of the Taliban strategy. The slow pace of reconstruction in Afghanistan frustrates most Afghan civilians, and they tend to take that anger out on the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Many Afghans also blame international troops, who now number more than 120,000, questioning why the West can afford to mount a huge military effort while people in many parts of the country live with impassable roads, unclean water and tottering infrastructure.

The NATO force condemned the assault.

“This attack shows the insurgents’ desire to prevent progress, and draws attention to their true goal of serving themselves rather than the people of Afghanistan,” said Navy Capt. Jane Campbell, an ISAF spokeswoman.

The Taliban is known to keep a close eye on domestic political sentiment in troop-contributing nations in the Western coalition. Most of the foreign troops in the north are German.

In Germany, support for the war has been on a downward spiral, and serious attacks in the Germans’ area of operations tend to further erode public backing for the Afghan mission.

Laura.King@latimes.com