Taliban suicide bombers disguised as police attacked a government compound Wednesday in southwestern Afghanistan in an assault that left 13 people dead, including a provincial council member and all nine attackers, authorities said.
Eight of the bombers blew themselves up and police shot the ninth, President Hamid Karzai's office said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as the provincial council was meeting in Zaranj.
In other violence, the Interior Ministry reported three explosions Wednesday that targeted the vehicles of private development companies in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Zabul.
The ministry said one person was killed and 11 were wounded in the blasts.
The top official at the U.N.'s refugee agency said Wednesday that security in Afghanistan has deteriorated in recent months to the extent that foreign staff are unable to travel to half of the country.
The agency has to rely on local staff or Afghan partner organizations to reach tens of thousands of refugees it is trying to aid, said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.
"There was a worsening security situation in the recent past," he told reporters in Geneva. "Access of our international staff to the territory is now limited to about 50 percent."
Kandahar has seen deadly insurgent violence in recent weeks, prompting the U.N. to scale down operations there. The looming NATO operation and ongoing crime and insecurity have rattled the region where the Taliban were formed and still have considerable support.
On Wednesday, NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz said the Kandahar operation will not be a typical military campaign, but will try to "address the complexity of problems we have."
Asked whether the people of Kandahar support the operation, Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said, "We are working on this."
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But hey! We're winning.
