KABUL (PAN): Taliban insurgents have asserted responsibility for a suicide bomb attack that killed a dozen people and wounded scores in front of the Indian Embassy in Kabul this morning.

A number of Indian mission employees were among the casualties, a spokesman for the militant movement told Pajhwok Afghan News over the telephone from an undisclosed location.

Zabihullah Mujahid said Khaled, a resident of Paghman district, carried out the attack on the embassy. At least 35 Afghan and international security personnel were killed and several others injured in the assault, he claimed.

Ambulances transferred the dead and injured from the scene -- near the India Embassy -- to different city hospitals soon after the blast that shattered glasses in nearby buildings and was heard several kilometres away.

One policeman and 11 civilians were killed in the brazen attack, which wounded at least 83 others, the Interior Ministry said. Eight of the wounded were police officials, according to a statement from the ministry.

The assailant in a car managed to enter the neighbourhood despite stringent security arrangements put in place around the sensitive locality. The 500-metre road has been barricaded for a year in the wake of a deadly suicide assault on the Indian Embassy.

mud