Kabul's Green Village International Zone Under Attack, Gunfire Heard

Kabul : A car bomb targetting an international zone known as the Green Village rocked eastern Kabul on Wednesday evening followed by bursts of gunfire, police and residents said.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said the street outside the Green Village, a heavily guarded complex housing foreign contractors and various facilities, had been sealed off and Afghan security forces were clearing the area.

"It was a car bomb that targeted the Green Village," said Sediq Sediqqi, an interior ministry spokesman. "Police are deployed in the area but no gunfire is heard at the moment."
The jihadist Afghan Taliban, ousted from power by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001, have been staging almost daily attacks in Kabul as foreign troops leave the country this year but no one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack.

"There are still no reports of possible casualties. It will become clear later as soon as the area has been totally cleared by Afghan forces," said Hashmat Stanekzai, a spokesman for the Kabul police chief.

On Tuesday morning, a truck bomb ripped through the outer perimeter of a foreign security compound in Kabul, killing two Afghan security guards and wounding a foreigner.

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Attacks on foreign troops, Afghan government officials and security forces have intensified as the international military coalition ends operations, leaving the fight against the Taliban insurgency mostly to Afghan forces.