MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan--Taliban militants stormed the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, ramming its outer wall with a truck bomb before battling security forces in an overnight attack that killed at least four people, officials said.
The explosion caused extensive damage to the building, a NATO spokesman said, but Germany indicated on Friday this would not deter it from continuing its work as part of the international mission in Afghanistan.
Triggered by a suicide bomber, the blast shattered windows as far as 5 km (3 miles) away, NATO said. A local doctor said it and the subsequent firefight also wounded 120 people. Twenty consular staff survived the attack with no injuries, German officials said.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said soldiers had had to battle hard to repel the heavily armed attackers. "It was only possible to ... beat them back after fighting that occurred at the compound and in the building," he said, adding that Berlin would review its lead role in northern Afghanistan.
His spokesman Martin Schaefer later said he did not expect a big policy shift. "I cannot imagine that the events of last night will lead to a fundamental change in Germany's thinking or that of the global community on the need for continued assistance for Afghanistan," Schaefer told reporters.
The attack also highlights one of the tougher policy challenges facing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump when he takes office in January. U.S. combat operations against the Taliban largely ended in 2014, but thousands of its soldiers remain in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission.
The Taliban said the attack was in retaliation for NATO air strikes against a village near the northern city of Kunduz last week in which more than 30 people, many of them children, were killed.
