Blast Kills Afghan Police Chiefs

A suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew himself up inside a heavily guarded compound today as top Afghan and international officials left a meeting. The blast at the governor's complex in Takhar province 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 attack, the latest in a Taliban spring offensive.

Among the dead were Gen. Daud Daud, regional police commander in northern Afghanistan, and provincial police chief Gen. Shah Jahan Noori. Gen. Markus Kneip, the NATO force's commander for northern Afghanistan, was among the wounded. "What we know is the guy who carried out the attack had a police uniform on," said a government spokesman. "How he entered the meeting room and why he was not searched, we don't know." (More Afghanistan war stories.)