Reuters

Still image from April 3, 2013 video footage shows damage at the site of an attack by Taliban suicide bombers at a courtroom in Farah province in western Afghanistan.

At least 54 people were killed and 90 others wounded Wednesday in an insurgent attack on a government compound in western Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters were facing trial, local officials said.

Nine insurgents with explosives strapped to their bodies stormed the compound in Farah province, bordering Iran, Reuters reported. Explosions were followed by protracted gun battles.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Among the dead were 35 civilians, 10 members of the Afghan Security Forces and the nine suicide attackers, Mohammad  Akram  Khpalwalk, governor of Farah province, said.

Most of the 90 to 95 people wounded were civilians, said Dr. Abdul Jabaar, the head of the hospital where victims were taken.

The attack was the deadliest single assault in the country since 2011.

President Hamid Karzai called the attack "genocide" against fellow Afghans and said a delegation would be sent Thursday to begin an investigation and to assist victims and their families.

"Once again, terrorists shed the blood of our innocent people who went as individuals to local institutions for their work in Farah province," Karzai said in a statement.

He pledged that the perpetrators would be accountable to the nation for the killings.

NBC News' Jamieson Lesko and Akbar Shinwari contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 3, 2013 11:21 AM EDT

JALALABAD, Afghanistan  - Taliban suicide bombers killed at least five policemen in Afghanistan's restive east on Tuesday, officials said, in a three-hour attack that coincided with a visit to the country by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The pre-dawn attack on a police compound in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan's largest city, came as the country braces for the beginning of the spring fighting season in the 11th year of the war.

One attacker detonated an explosive-laden car at the entrance of the Afghan National Police compound in a bid to let other attackers inside, provincial police chief Amin Sharif said.

"Three suicide bombers triggered their explosive vests and five were shot dead," he told Reuters, adding that five policemen were killed and four wounded.

US shares same goals as Afghan leader Karzai, John Kerry says

Amin said the attackers were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and light machineguns, sparking a three-hour battle with Afghan security forces. Six civilians were wounded.

Kerry was in Kabul to discuss transfer of security to the Afghan forces, as most U.S.-led NATO combat troops prepare to leave by the end of next year.

Rahmat Gul / AP

Afghan police and U.S. forces at the scene where eight suicide bombers attacked a police headquarters in Jalalabad on Tuesday.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message.

The Turkish far-left group DHKP-C claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, according to a statement on a website linked to the group, news agencies reported.

The statement posted Saturday on "The People's Cry" website said Ecevit Sanli carried out "an act of self-sacrifice on Feb. 1, 2013, by entering the Ankara embassy of the United States, murderer of the peoples of the world," according to Reuters and The Associated Press.

The DHKP-C's statement also called Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan a U.S. "puppet," according to Reuters.

"Murderer America! You will not run away from people's rage," the statement read, warning Erdogan that he was also a target.

A picture the website claimed was of the bomber was posted with the statement. A government terror expert confirmed the authenticity of the website, the AP reported.

The Ankara governor's office said DNA tests showed Sanli had indeed been the attacker. Authorities said Sanli had fled Turkey 10 years ago and was wanted by the police, according to Reuters.

Sanli had previously been jailed in 1997 for attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul, but Reuters said his sentence was postponed because he became sick during a hunger strike. He was never imprisoned again.

After he was sentenced to life in prison in 2002, Sanli fled Turkey, according to Reuters. Interior Minister Muammer Guler said he was able to return to the country using false documents.

The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, is a far-left group designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Turkey and the European Union. Leftist groups such as the DHKP-C strongly oppose the United States' influence over Turkey.

Also on Saturday, Turkish state media said officials detained three people in Istanbul and Ankara in connection with the attack, Reuters reported.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at an entrance to the U.S. Embassy compound in Ankara on Friday. The bomber and a Turkish guard were killed in the attack, which the U.S. described as "an act of terror."

Slideshow: Blast hits US Embassy in Turkey

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The U.S. flag flies at half-staff a day after a suicide bomber struck the U.S. Embassy in Ankara.

Launch slideshow

The bomber, who was wearing a suicide vest, made it to the first X-ray machine in a screening area leading to the visa section, police sources said, and then detonated the device.

The Turkish security guard standing nearby was killed, but two guards on the other side of the checkpoint, behind bulletproof glass, survived. A Turkish journalist on her way to visit the ambassador was critically wounded.

On Sept. 11 last year, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, prompting concern about security for diplomats.

SITE Intelligence Group via AFP - Getty Images

This image released by the SITE Intelligence Group on Feb. 2, shows a man identified as Ecevit Sanli on the website of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, a Turkey-based radical Marxist-Leninist group, that claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Feb. 1.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Friday that after Benghazi, every U.S. post in the world reviewed its security. She added that the embassy in Ankara is one of the posts due for a complete compound overhaul. The building housing the embassy was built in the 1950s and needs a full upgrade, Nuland said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

US Embassy compound in Turkey hit by 'terrorist' attack

KABUL — A coordinated attack involving at least three suicide bombers and a powerful car bomb took aim at the headquarters of the Kabul traffic department on Monday, followed by a clash between at least one insurgent and security forces, police said.

The attack took place just days after six suicide bombers attacked the Afghan spy agency in Kabul, killing two.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Monday's attack.

"Today at 5 o'clock in the morning (8:30 p.m. EST Sunday) a number of mujahideen martyrs entered a government building close to an American training centre... Heavy fighting is ongoing," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a text message to media.

Police said it was not immediately clear if there were any casualties in the attack, which involved a second bombing, a tactic favored by Islamist insurgents elsewhere but relatively rare in Afghanistan.

"About an hour after the initial attack (triple suicide bomb attack) a fourth man drove a car to the same compound and detonated another bomb," the head of the Kabul police criminal investigation department, Mohammad Zahir, told Reuters.

Violence across the country has been increasing over the last year, sparking concern over how the 350,000-strong Afghan security forces will be able to manage once foreign troops withdraw by 2014.

Strdel / AFP - Getty Images

Indian police personnel present six arrested men, accused of a gang rape in Punjab state, Sunday.

Updated at 8:39 p.m. ET: Six suspects have been arrested over the rape of a woman on a bus in northern India, just weeks after the gang-rape and murder of a student sparked nationwide protests, reports said early Sunday.

Police say a 29-year-old woman was a lone passenger on a bus to her village in northern Punjab state on Friday when she was attacked, The Associated Press reported.

The driver and conductor allegedly refused to stop at her village and instead drove her to a desolate location. They took her to a nearby building where they were joined by friends and raped her repeatedly, the AP said.

The woman went to a police station in the morning to file a complaint. Six of the seven suspects have been arrested, Reuters reported.

The apparent case follows the gang rape and fatal beating of a medical student on a New Delhi bus in December, which sparked protests in India over national attitudes to violence against women and made headlines around the world.

Related: Defense attorney blames victim in India gang-rape, murder case

Despite the heightened awareness of the way sex crimes are dealt with, the Times of India reported that the latest victim was publicly named by police in Punjab – a move the newspaper described as “completely insensitive.”

Related: Father of rape victim: Hang the monsters who did this

"Six men have been arrested on allegations of having raped a 29-year-old woman... after forcibly taking her to an unknown location on the night of January 11," local police officer Raj Jeet Singh said, according to Agence France-Press.

Police say they arrested six suspects on Saturday and are searching for one other, AFP said.

Correction: An earlier version of this post had an incorrect date for the cable sent to the State Department by U.S. Embassy personnel in Libya.

House Republicans stepped up criticism of President Barack Obama on Friday over the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S mission in Benghazi, Libya, releasing 166 pages of unclassified documents and photos that they said show administration officials repeatedly rejected “requests for increased security despite escalating violence … (and) systematically decreased existing security to dangerous and ineffective levels.”

The release of the documents, which came just days before Obama and Republican Mitt Romney discuss U.S. foreign policy in their last debate before the Nov. 6 presidential election, added to the political furor over the administration’s actions preceding the late-night attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which claimed the life of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Many of the documents released by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and National Security Subcommittee Chairman Jason Chaffetz had previously been made public, but others provided new evidence of growing concern about the security situation in Benghazi, and Libya in general.

One, a June 25 memo from Stevens, referred to incidents in Benghazi in which local elements attacked foreigners and specifically mentioned signs of growing al-Qaida sympathies in the city.

 “(A) national security official shared his private opinion that the attacks were the work of extremists who are opposed to western influence in Libya,” Stevens wrote. “A number of local contacts agreed, noting that Islamic extremism appears to be on the rise in eastern Libya and the al-Qaida flag has been spotted several times flying over government buildings and training facilities in Derna (a city east of Benghazi). Other contacts disagree however suggesting that the attacks could be the work of pro-Gadhafi loyalists or individuals who have been politically and financially marginalized by the (Transitional National Council)."

Another document, a cable dated Aug. 2 and sent to the State Department by U.S. Embassy personnel in Tripoli, indicated that staff had growing concerns over security provided by Libyan militias.

“Host nation security support is lacking and cannot be depended on to provide a safe and secure environment for the diplomatic mission,” it said in part.

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In a letter to Obama, Issa, R-Calif., and Chaffetz, R-Utah, demanded the president fully answer questions about the administration’s response to the concerns.

"The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration,” it said. “Americans also deserve a complete explanation about your administration's decision to accelerate a normalized presence in Libya at what now appears to be at the cost of endangering American lives.”

The senior Democrat on the committee, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., issued a statement in which he accused Issa and Chaffetz of attempting to use the tragedy to score political points.

Issa's letter "completely ignores sworn testimony provided to the committee, recklessly omits contradictory information from the very same documents it quotes, irresponsibly promotes inaccurate information, and makes numerous allegations with no evidence to substantiate them," he wrote.

Ben Curtis / AP file

U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died in the attack on the U.S. consulate Benghazi, LIbya.

Separately, a senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said Friday that investigators still have not uncovered any evidence that the attack was preplanned.

"No one is ruling out the idea that some of the attackers may have aspired to attack the U.S. in Benghazi," the official said. "However, right now, there isn't any intelligence that the attackers preplanned their assault days or weeks in advance.  The bulk of available information supports the early assessment that the attackers launched their assault  opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Of course, other factors may also have motivated participation in the attack." 

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State Department spokesman Mark Toner also cautioned that investigators are still piecing together events that led to the attack.

"An independent board is conducting a thorough review of the assault on our post in Benghazi,” he said. “Once we have the board's comprehensive account of what happened, findings and recommendations, we can fully address these matters."

The release of the documents came after the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said they would continue to press the administration to explain why U.S. spy agencies and government spokesmen initially played down suspected al-Qaida links to the consulate attack.

More to Benghazi attacks than surface at debate

Immediately after the Benghazi attack, U.S. spy agencies produced conflicting reports on who was behind them, U.S. officials said. Most said extremists with possible al-Qaida ties were involved. But a few reports, which the Obama administration emphasized in public statements, said the attacks could have been spontaneous protests against a U.S.-made anti-Muslim video.

Ultimately, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the top U.S. intelligence authority, declared that the events were a "deliberate and organized terrorist attack" carried out by "extremists" affiliated with or sympathetic to al-Qaida.

On Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said both intelligence and security problems may have played a role in the attack.

"There's no question but that it was a terrorist attack, there is no question but that the security was inadequate and I think that there is no question that we need to work on our intelligence," Feinstein told KCBS-TV.

Clinton refuses to assign blame for Benghazi attacks 

When asked why the U.S. government initially played down the role of Islamic militants, she said: "I think what happened was the director of intelligence, who is a very good individual, put out some speaking points on the initial intelligence assessment. I think that was possibly a mistake."

But the committee's Republican vice chairman, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, questioned whether administration officials deliberately omitted possible references to al-Qaida involvement in talking points about the Benghazi attacks.

"Talking points distributed by the administration are nearly identical to intelligence assessments within hours of the attack, except in one important way: the intelligence judgment that the attackers had ties to al-Qaida was excluded from the public points," Chambliss said in a statement on Friday.

"The administration omitted the known links to al-Qaida at almost every opportunity ... Whether this was an intentional effort by the administration to downplay the role of terrorist groups, especially al-Qaida, is one of the many issues the Senate Intelligence Committee must examine," he said.

NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell and NBC News producers Catherine Chomiak, Rich Gardella and Libby Leist and Reuters news service contributed to this report. 

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