KABUL — A Taliban car bomb killed at least three people and wounded two in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday in an apparent attack on a foreign contractor company that came despite a further tightening in security across the city, officials said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh said all those killed and wounded in the explosion were civilians, with no casualties among the contractors.

Witnesses said the true casualty toll was higher and that, like countless other attacks in Kabul, its main victims appeared to ordinary people going about their daily lives.

“All those killed were barbers or shoeshine men. I was horrified when I saw their bodies,” said Mohammad Osman, who was nearby when the explosion shattered buildings and said he had seen four or five bodies on the ground.

A Taliban statement claimed responsibility for the attack, which it said targeted “foreign invaders.” It said the attack destroyed two foreign vehicles and killed between six and 10 people, but it denied any Afghan civilians were killed.

“More such attacks will be carried out,” the statement said.

The Taliban routinely exaggerates the number of people killed in its attacks, while Afghan officials tend to understate the casualty toll.

It was the fourth suicide attack in Kabul in three weeks and comes days after the top US general in Afghanistan said protecting the war-weary city was “our main effort”.

It also comes as the Taliban faces growing pressure to take up Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s offer last month of peace talks to end the 16-year war.

The attack comes weeks before the start of the spring fighting season which is expected to be more intense this year as militants respond to intensifying US and Afghan air strikes and ground offensives.

Saturday’s assault comes after General John Nicholson, who leads US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said protecting the city was a priority for foreign forces.

“Kabul is our main effort right now, to harden Kabul, to protect the people of Kabul and the international community that are here because of the strategic impact that has and the importance to the campaign,” Nicholson told reporters on Wednesday.

But Nicholson conceded that preventing further attacks would be challenging in the sprawling city that is poorly mapped and extremely porous.

Taliban and Daesh (the so-called IS) militants have been ramping up attacks in Kabul in recent months, increasing pressure on the Afghan government, which is frequently lambasted for its inability to protect civilians.

The most recent was on March 9 when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a Shiite area of the city, killing at least nine people. Daesh claimed responsibility as it seeks to stir up sectarian violence in the Sunni-majority country.

In a surprise visit to Kabul on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said “elements” of the Taliban were open to peace talks with the Afghan government.

But so far Afghanistan’s largest militant group has given only a muted response to Ghani’s February 28 proposal made at an international conference in Kabul and has continued to launch deadly attacks across the country.

And US data suggests the group has few reasons to negotiate right now. — Agencies