A gun and suicide attack on an Afghan governor’s compound killed 22 people yesterday in the latest Taliban assault spotlighting the militants’ power just outside the capital Kabul.

Abdul Basir Salangi, the governor of Parwan province, told a local television channel during the siege that six suicide bombers had stormed the main provincial administration. “I’m inside,” Mr Salangi told Tolo News, referring to the compound that houses his office and other administrators in the provincial capital of Charikar about 50 kilometres north of Kabul.

The governor is a prominent anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban resistance commander who fought tough battles with the Taliban when they were in power from 1996 until the 2001 US-led invasion evicted them from government.

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