Suicide blast near Kabul government offices kills attacker, one other

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KABUL (Reuters) -A suicide bomber killed one person and wounded three in an attack near government offices in Kabul on Thursday, an official spokesman said, the second explosion in Afghanistan this week.

The attacker was also killed.

Security guards had identified him and shot him as he approached the intended target, the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, detonating the explosives, the Interior Ministry said.

No group has taken responsibility for the attack, which took place in a busy part of the capital housing administrative and government offices, and foreign embassies including the U.S. Embassy. That site has been vacant since American and other foreign forces withdrew from the country in 2021.

The Taliban took over the country in 2021 and said it would restore security to the war-torn nation. But attacks have continued, many of them claimed by the local arm of the militant Islamic State (IS) group.

This attack is the second this week after a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body outside a bank in northeastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least five people.

Militants from the Afghan branches of Islamic State have waged an insurgency against the Taliban since they returned to power.

(Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul; Writing by Ariba Shahid; Editing by Kim Coghill and Angus MacSwan)