Suicide bombers and gunmen killed at least 16 people during an attack on a governor's compound in central Afghanistan today.
Witnesses reported hearing at least five explosions as Afghan security forces inside the compound of Parwan governor Abdul Basir Salangi fought back.
"So far we have received 16 bodies and 29 have been injured," a doctor at the Parwan provincial hospital, said. "Most of the bodies are government employees."
Parwan lies about an hour's drive northwest of the capital, Kabul, another worrying sign of the reach of the Taliban and other insurgents.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Parwan attack.
Eight days ago, a rocket-propelled grenade fired by the Taliban brought down a NATO helicopter in another central Afghan province near Kabul, killing 30 US and eight Afghan troops in the worst single incident for foreign forces in 10 years of war.
Violence across Afghanistan in 2010 reached its worst levels since the Taliban were toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, and 2011 has followed a similar trend.
While foreign military casualties hit record levels last year -- and 2011 has been almost as bloody - civilians continue to bear the brunt of the costly and increasingly unpopular war.
UN figures released last month showed that the first six months of 2011 had been the deadliest of the war for ordinary Afghans, with 1,462 killed, a rise of 15 per cent on the same period last year. The same UN report blamed 80 per cent of those civilian casualties on insurgents.