Militants Blow Themselves Up in Kabul Standoff

Five suspected Taliban militants blew themselves up in the Afghan capital, Kabul, when the house they were in was surrounded by security forces today.

"They were killed when they blew themselves up in the house. There were five of them," an Afghan interior ministry official told Reuters.

A police officer at the scene said four other people had been detained following clashes at the mud brick house near Babur's Garden, a popular park in western Kabul.

Ahmad Fahim, a journalist for Radio Kalid, said he had seen intelligence agents take away three suspects in vehicles.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene said rocket-propelled grenades and automatic gunfire were exchanged for several hours before the clash ended this morning.

Neighboring families fled from their homes after the gun battle began.

Police were investigating whether there were civilian casualties of the explosion, he added.

Two officers from the state security and intelligence service were also killed in the fighting, a police official said. Two others were wounded.

Saeed Ansari, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, said the troops had wanted to capture the suspects alive.

The clash followed a failed attempt by the Taliban to assassinate the president, Hamid Karzai, during a military parade on Sunday.

Six people, including three of the Taliban assailants, died in the attack. One of the men who died in today's siege had taken part in the attack, a Taliban spokesman said.

Yesterday, the chief of the intelligence service, Amrullah Saleh, said his agency had known about the threat to the president but had failed to locate the plotters in time.