ISIS claims responsibility for attack on Iraq Embassy in Kabul

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility for an attack on the Iraq Embassy in Kabul on Monday that began with a suicide bomber blowing himself up at the main gate, allowing gunmen to enter the building and battle security forces.

 Although there has been no confirmation of direct planning links with the main ISIS movement, the attack, just three weeks after the recapture of Mosul, underlines fears of a spillover into Afghanistan from fighting in Syria and Iraq.

 Afghan security forces confronted three gunmen for hours before the Interior Ministry announced mid-afternoon that the attack, in a normally busy business district of the capital, had been suppressed.

Ministry spokesperson Najib Danish said two Afghan Embassy workers had been killed, but no Iraqi personnel had been hurt.

The embassy building, partly blackened by smoke and flames from the fighting, was damaged, but otherwise the impact from the attack was relatively limited, compared with other recent attacks in Kabul.

Witnesses reported hearing gunshots and several subsequent explosions in the area of the embassy, and police cordoned off the area of the firefight.

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Interior Ministry spokesperson Najib Danish said the Iraqi diplomats were safe and had been rescued.

A police officer in the area who identified himself only as Abdullah said the gunfire was initially intense, before becoming sporadic. The area was surrounded by armoured vehicles and a large contingent of police and Afghan soldiers.

More than an hour later, witnesses reported hearing another powerful explosion and saw black smoke billowing skyward. The cause of the last explosion wasn't immediately clear.

At least one eyewitness, a store owner who goes by the name of Hafizullah — many Afghans use only one name — said he saw the bodies of two policemen on the ground before armoured personnel carriers and police arrived to cordon off the area.

"The explosion was so strong. I was so afraid," said Maryam, a woman crying near the site of the attack said. She said she works at the nearby office of Afghanistan's National Airline Ariana.

Iraq embassy vulnerable

The Iraq Embassy is in a part of the city known as Shahr-e-Now, which lies outside the so-called "green zone" where most foreign embassies and diplomatic missions are located and which is heavily fortified with a phalanx of guards and giant cement blast walls.

By comparison, the embassy is on a small street in a neighbourhood dominated by markets and businesses.

After Iraqi forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, recaptured the city of Mosul from ISIS earlier in July, the Iraq Embassy had called reporters to its offices in Kabul to express concerns that the local ISIS affiliate might stage large-scale attacks elsewhere to draw away attention from the militant group's losses in Iraq.