KABUL, Afghanistan – A suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew himself up inside a heavily guarded compound Saturday as top Afghan and international officials left a meeting.

The attack killed two senior Afghan police commanders and wounded the German general who commands coalition troops in northern Afghanistan.

Two German soldiers and two other Afghans were killed in the blast, the latest in an insurgent spring offensive.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred about a month before a drawdown of U.S. troops begins.

The bomber detonated his explosives-laden vest inside the governor’s complex in Takhar province, where high-ranking Afghan officials were meeting with members of the international coalition, said Faiz Mohammad Tawhedi, a spokesman for the governor.

“How he entered the meeting room and why he was not searched, we don’t know,” Tawhedi said

Among the dead was Gen. Daud Daud, regional police commander in northern Afghanistan, according to health director, Dr. Hassain Basech.

Gen. Markus Kneip, the NATO force’s commander for northern Afghanistan, was among the wounded, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said it was part of an assassination campaign against high-ranking government officials and was meant to undercut a military offensive he said the Afghan National Army was planning to launch in the north.