Afghan Intel Attack: Suicide Bombers Storm Jalalabad NDS Office; Kill 6

Six people were killed and many others wounded when two suicide car bombers and Taliban gunmen attacked an intelligence agency in the city of Jalalabad on Saturday, various reports say.

Four agents and two civilians were killed when a truck and a car carrying explosives attacked the compound and gunfight between Afghan forces and the insurgents began.

Security forces shot and killed the two suicide bombers as well as five gunmen armed with suicide vests, in Jalalabad headquarters of the National Directory of Security (NDS), Reuters reported, citing Ahmad Zeya Abdulzai, a spokesman for the governor of eastern Nangarhar province near the Pakistani border.

"It was early morning and we were sleeping at home. A strong explosion happened followed by firing. When I came out of my room I was covered with dust, and my kids and I got injured from broken windows," Washington Post quoted an eyewitness, Ahmad Shah.

Nangarhar's public health director, Najib Kamawal, said that six bodies and 45 wounded were taken from the area to a nearby hospital.

"Most of the victims are civilians," he told Reuters.

Taking responsibility for the attack, the Taliban said that their fighters had killed as many as 71 NDS agents, police and Special Forces soldiers, but it has been widely noted that the Islamic group is well-known for making exaggerated claims about casualties after they attack foreign and Afghan government forces.

Jalalabad is one of Afghanistan's biggest cities, which sits on a major trade route to neighbouring Pakistan. The city, however, is also located in one of the most troubled regions of the war-torn country.

The violence occurs with a political deadlock in the capital, Kabul, where rival presidential candidates have remained unable to resolve months-long dispute over an election that is supposed to mark the first democratic transition of power in the middle-east Islamic nation.