July 31 (UPI) -- The Islamic State terror group took responsibility for an attack Monday on Iraq's embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul in which two people died.
Three attackers entered the compound after a fourth blew himself up in a car bombing at an embassy gate in the late morning Monday.
Gunfire and explosions could be heard within the area as embassy staff members were evacuated, Najib Danish, a spokesman for Afghanistan's interior ministry, said.
"It is a terrorist attack. There is no threat to the ambassador and the employees of the embassy. They were taken to a safe place," Danish said in a statement. Another ministry spokesman later said that two members of the embassy staff died in the attack, and three others, including a police officer, were injured.
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Plumes of smoke from the embassy grounds were visible, and a police officer near the scene said five explosions were followed by gunfire.
Amaq, the IS propaganda wing, reported on "the [Islamic State] attack the Iraqi embassy in the Afghan city of Kabul" without elaboration.
The attack was the latest of several in Kabul in recent weeks. At least 24 people, most of them employees of Afghanistan's Ministry of Mines, were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber last week. At least 150 died a month ago when a truck bomb detonated near the German embassy, an incident blamed on the Taliban's Haqqani wing.
The United Nations says at least 220 people have died and more than 1,000 have been injured in incidents in Kabul this year.
