Gov't building raided by gunmen

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP):

GUNMEN WEARING suicide vests stormed a government building in eastern Afghanistan early Sunday and engaged in a shoot-out with Afghan security forces who surrounded the compound, officials said.

The attack came a day after a Taliban suicide bomber infiltrated the capital's main military hospital and killed at least six Afghan medical students.

In Sunday's incident, one guard was killed as the attackers - three or four men armed with guns and wearing explosives strapped to their bodies - shot their way into the traffic department compound on the edge of Khost city at about 5 a.m., said Gen Raz Mohammad Oryakhail, the army commander for Khost province.

The gunbattle was still going on more than two hours later, with the assailants inside the second floor of the building and shooting down at police and soldiers outside, he said.

Police and soldiers were trying to avoid launching a full assault because they didn't want the gunmen to detonate their suicide vests, said provincial Police Chief Gen Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai. Afghan security forces had the compound surrounded, he said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but it matched the pattern of Taliban assaults on government installations.