A suicide bomber attacked the Russian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Monday. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the bomber was gunned down by Taliban guards before entering the premises, but still got close enough to kill two embassy staffers.

“At 10:50 am Kabul time on Sept. 5, an unidentified militant set off an explosive device in the immediate vicinity of the entrance to the consular section of the Russian embassy in Kabul,” the Russian Foreign Ministry stated on Monday.

“As a result of the attack, two employees of the diplomatic mission were killed, and there are also Afghan citizens among the wounded,” the statement said.

Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafy Takor confirmed to Agence France-Press that the Russian embassy was the target of the attack.

“It was a suicide attack, but before the bomber could reach his target, he was targeted by our forces and eliminated,” Takor said.

Afghan burqa-clad women walk past the Russian embassy after a suicide attack in Kabul on September 5, 2022. A suicide bomber struck near the Russian embassy in the Afghan capital on September 5, killing two staff from the diplomatic mission and wounding several other people, the foreign ministry in Moscow said. (WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)

The BBC quoted another Taliban official who said at least 10 people were injured in the explosion. 

The Taliban “police force” in Kabul claimed “four people and two employees of the Russian embassy were killed.” 

The police statement attributed the large number of injuries to the bomb detonating amid a “crowd of people” outside the Russian embassy. Russian state media reported the attack occurred when a Russian diplomat emerged from the embassy to call out the names of visa candidates.

An Afghan security source told CNN that one of the dead embassy employees was “an Afghan guard,” but no details were provided about the other reported fatalities.

“Without any doubt, we are talking about a terrorist act, which is absolutely unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that additional Taliban security forces have been requested to protect the embassy and “strengthen the protection of the outer perimeter.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, which was the first attack on a foreign diplomatic mission since the Taliban captured Kabul last August. Not many countries besides Russia kept their embassies open after the fall of Kabul, and even Russia does not officially recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.