MOHAMMAD ISMAIL / REUTERS
KABUL, Afghanistan — With security concerns already mounting before the Afghan presidential vote, a Taliban assault team turned election offices in eastern Kabul into a scene of carnage on Tuesday. After a firefight that stretched for more than three hours and trapped dozens of people in the compound, five victims lay dead and the Afghan capital had again been proven vulnerable.
Two of the five attackers detonated their explosives belts at the gate of the compound, while three others rushed in armed with assault rifles, the police said. Even as the attack was unfolding, the Taliban claimed responsibility, reemphasizing their campaign to disrupt the April 5 election and punish those involved in them.
The victims included two police officers, an election worker and a provincial council candidate, officials said. At least six other people were reported wounded.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Sediq Seddiqi, said that the police had responded quickly, rescuing more than 70 people trapped in the compound before killing the remaining attackers. The compound is near the home of a leading presidential candidate, Ashraf Ghani, who was not home at the time, officials said.
"If the police did not response in a timely manner, they could have massacred every one," Mr. Seddiqi said.
At the scene of the attack, it was hard to see how anyone survived.
Bombers' body parts and victims' blood covered the street and courtyard. The building appeared a bombed-out shell, with bullet holes pockmarking the entire facade and the doors and windows blown off hinges.
The smell of gasoline and explosives filled the air, and the ground was covered in glass and bits of concrete torn from the building.
An election worker who was inside the offices of the Independent Election Commission when the attack happened said that heavy gunfire began immediately after the initial blasts. Some workers got stuck in the basement, while others rushed from the corridor and locked themselves in rooms.
"Everyone was shouting, a woman was on the ground bleeding from a gunshot," said the election worker, Khalil Usmani. "It was crazy, bullets and smoke. No one knew who anyone was."
After months of relative calm in the capital, Kabul has again been the scene of troubling attacks in recent weeks, stirring up unease among Afghan and international officials here and raising questions about security for an election seen as critical to the country's stability after the Western military pullout by year's end.
Officials are hoping that the Taliban's campaign of violence will not be enough to intimidate voters from turning out for the high-stakes election. With three main contenders vying for the presidency, observers are hoping the enhanced competition will also bolster turnout compared with the 2009 election, when most Afghans expected President Hamid Karzai to win and widespread violence kept significant sections of the population from voting.
Resilience and fear were both on display on Tuesday outside the devastated election offices and near Mr. Ghani's home.
Farid, 22, said the attacks had made him rethink his decision to vote. The general insecurity and a fear that he might wind up a victim of a Taliban assault have altered the hope he held for participating in the upcoming election.
"I won't take part in the elections," he said, standing along the edge of a crowd near the site of the attack. "I wanted to vote, but all of these recent attacks have changed my mind."
Still, many Afghans are trying to shrug off the violence, and insisting that self-determination is more important than risk.
Nasir Ahmed, also among the crowd clogging the entrance to the road leading to the Independent Election Commission, said nothing would weaken his resolve to have a voice in his country's future.
"We will still go and participate in the election," he said. "These attacks can't stop us from casting our votes."
Ahmad Shakib and Haris Kakar contributed reporting.
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