A suicide bomber attacked the Russian Embassy in Kabul on Monday, killing two employees and four Afghan civilians, Russian and Afghan officials said, in the first assault on a diplomatic mission in the country since the Taliban seized power last year.

The attack took place around 11 a.m. at the entrance to the embassy, according to Khalid Zadran, a spokesman for the Kabul police force, when the bomber managed to detonate the explosive in a crowd before Taliban security forces outside the embassy shot and killed him.

The blast was the latest in a steady drumbeat of suicide bombings in recent months that have offered gruesome reminders of the dangers that persist in Afghanistan.

Most attacks over the past year have targeted Taliban members and mosques belonging to Shiites and Sufis, two of the country’s minority groups. Until Monday, since the takeover, foreign delegations in Afghanistan had been spared.