The remains of a British embassy vehicle after the suicide attack in Kabul on Thursday. (Reuters)

Kabul, Nov. 27: At least five persons were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a British embassy vehicle in Kabul this morning.

Another explosion and gunfire could be heard this evening in the Wazir Akbar Khan neighbourhood, where many foreign embassies are located. The attacks were the latest in an escalating bombing campaign in Kabul, the authorities said.

Hashmatullah Stanikzai, a spokesman for the Kabul police, said that four Afghans and a Briton had been killed in the suicide bombing, and that 33 people had been wounded, including four children. British embassy personnel were among the wounded, a spokesman for the embassy said.

Rohullah, a senior police official in the district where the morning attack occurred, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said the bomber had been in a car laden with explosives, which he detonated near the embassy vehicle.

Zareef Khan, a shopkeeper near the scene of the attack, said he had seen many children among the wounded. “All I could see were the dead and wounded showered in their blood, shouting and asking for help,” he said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of bombings in Kabul over the past few weeks. On Monday, a bomb hidden in the median strip of a road was detonated as a convoy of coalition soldiers passed, leaving two dead. The Kabul police chief and a prominent women’s rights leader were also targeted in recent attacks, but both survived.

The attack this evening began at about 7.30pm in a neighbourhood of Kabul where many foreign embassies and international news organisations are located. A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said on Twitter that a “group of their suicide attackers attacked an enemy”.

The assailants, who had stormed a house in the neighbourhood and were believed to be barricaded inside, were shot and killed shortly after 9pm, according to the police spokesman, Stanikzai.

The increase in violence in Kabul has occurred as the new Afghan government under President Ashraf Ghani begins to assert its control, and most foreign troops are leaving the country.

Military analysts and Afghan politicians have said that the Taliban’s escalation is a response to the decision of Ghani to sign a security pact with the US, something that his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, who left office in September, refused to do.

“The Taliban had warned if the BSA is signed by the government, they will continue their struggle and war,” said Atiqullah Amarkhel, a former general in the Afghan Army and Air Force.