CHARIKAR, Afghanistan – Six suicide bombers attacked a governor’s security meeting in one of Afghanistan’s most secure provinces, killing 22 people and driving home the point that the Taliban is able to strike at will virtually anywhere in the country.

The governor of Parwan, a relatively peaceful eastern province just 30 miles north of Kabul, survived. He said he picked up an assault rifle and shot at least one of the attackers dead from the waiting room of his office.

Additional Photos

Afghan police officers and soldiers inspect the site of a car bombing Sunday in the Parwan provincial capital of Charikar, some 30 miles north of Kabul, Afghanistan. Sixteen civilian government employees and six police officers were killed. The Associated Press

Two other insurgents detonated their vests, causing most of the deaths and burning part of the governor’s offices. Several cars were wrecked by shrapnel and bullets. Broken glass and body parts littered a charred lawn.

The bold daylight assault in Charikar follows a similar attack by suicide bombers at a major Kabul hotel in June, and the downing of a U.S. helicopter full of U.S. special operations troops only 35 miles away from Kabul. The attacks in and close to the capital raise more questions about Afghanistan’s ability to defend itself as the U.S.-led coalition hands more of the country over to its struggling forces.

Police said Sunday’s assault began outside the front gate, where a car bomber set off an explosion that smashed through a wall of the compound, allowing five other insurgents toting assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers to enter.

The attack interrupted a provincial security meeting attended by Parwan Gov. Abdul Basir Salangi, his police chief, intelligence director, a local army commander and at least two NATO advisers.

All the attackers wore suicide vests, and at least three of them were dressed as police officers, police said. Two attackers made it across a courtyard and detonated their vests inside the governor’s headquarters building, but three others were killed before they could enter, police said.

Salangi said that he and his aides fired at insurgents from his offices. He claimed to have killed one of the attackers.

“I had an AK-47. I shot him from the window of my waiting room,” said Salangi, who was formerly the police chief of Kabul and a rebel fighter during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He said it was the second time in the past month he was targeted by an assassination attempt.

Provincial Police Chief Gen. Sher Ahmad Maladani also took part in the gun battle, which he said lasted for about one hour.

“The last attacker was killed by police when he was only about 15 meters away from me,” said Maladani. The bomber was killed before he could detonate his explosives.

Sixteen of the dead were civilian Afghan government employees and six were police officers, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry. At least 37 other people were injured.

The U.S.-led coalition plans to send 10,000 troops home by the end of the year and is considering whether to move forces from Taliban heartlands in the south to reinforce troops fighting insurgents in the east.

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