Dozens of Afghan intel personnel killed in Taliban attack

Afghan officials confirmed Tuesday that dozens of victims killed the previous day in a brazen Taliban attack on a military base not far from Kabul were members of the country's intelligence agency a severe blow to the government which has already lost control of nearly half of Afghanistan to insurgents.

Provincial officials said at least 45 people were killed and as many as 70 were wounded when a suicide bomber drove a Humvee into the base in eastern Maidan Wardak province and detonated his load as he rammed the vehicle into the main building there on Monday.

There were fears, however, that the death toll from the daytime assault on the base, which also serves as a training center for a pro-government militia and is run by the country's intelligence service known as the National Directorate for Security, or NDS, is even higher.

The NDS on Tuesday said its reports show 36 military personnel were killed and 58 were wounded. Though the agency's figures were lower than what provincial officials had reported, it was still an unprecedented casualty toll for the agency, among the best equipped and trained in Afghanistan.

The agency said the suicide bomber in the armored Humvee had managed to penetrate the gate of the base on the outskirts of Maidan Shar, the provincial capital located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Kabul, even though guards fired at the vehicle.

Khawanin Sultani, a council member in the province, said the building collapsed from the explosion, which likely contributed to the high casualty numbers.

"Most of the bodies were under the destroyed building," he said.

The Taliban, who promptly claimed responsibility in a statement to the media just hours after the attack, later said in a separate statement that they had met again on Monday with U.S. representatives to discuss "ending the invasion of Afghanistan" in talks that would continue on Tuesday.

They are meeting in Qatar, where the Taliban have a political office.

The simultaneousness of the events the deadly attack, one of the worst Taliban assaults on Afghan forces in recent years and the Qatar meeting that was meant to pave way for talks aimed at resolving Afghanistan's 17-year war, underscored the audacity of the insurgents in the face of stepped-up U.S. peace efforts.