Omar Sobhani / Reuters

Afghan security forces run on the roof of the Kabul traffic police headquarters as it is attacked by insurgents on Jan. 21, 2013.

Reuters reports — Suicide bombers and gunmen launched an eight-hour assault on the headquarters of the Kabul traffic police on Monday, Afghan officials said, in the second coordinated attack on a government building in less than a week.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the operation in which all five attackers and three traffic police officers were killed, interior ministry officials said.

The attack raised the possibility that insurgents were shifting tactics, testing Afghan security forces in Kabul after a series of high-profile attacks on Western targets last year. Read the full story.

Omar Sobhani / Reuters

Afghan police officers run to the Kabul traffic police headquarters as it is attacked by insurgents on Jan. 21, 2013.

Shah Marai / AFP - Getty Images

Black smoke billows from the Afghan police headquarters during an attack in Kabul on Jan. 21, 2013.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Aref Karimi / AFP - Getty Images

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

Omar Faruk / Reuters

Relatives assist an unidentified woman injured in an explosion at the national theater in Mogadishu, Somalia, on April 4, 2012.

Omar Faruk / Reuters

Residents assist an unidentified man injured in the explosion.

NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services report — The president of Somalia's Olympic committee and the head of the country's soccer federation have been killed in a suicide blast at Mogadishu's newly reopened national theater that left at least 10 dead, according to reports.

Sports official Shafici Mohyadin said the two were killed on Wednesday when the blast hit the first anniversary celebration of Somalia's television station, according to the Associated Press.

Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu's ambulance service, said at least 10 people were killed and dozens wounded, including the country's national planning minister.

Al-Shabab, the regional terror group affiliated to al-Qaida, claimed reponsibility for the attack, Reuters reported. Read more.

Omar Faruk / Reuters

Policemen and residents secure the national theater after the explosion.

Mohamed Sheikh Nor / AP

Somalis stretcher away a man wounded in the blast.

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A. Majeed / AFP - Getty Images

Pakistani policemen take position during a militant attack on a police station in Peshawar on Feb. 24, 2012. Four policemen were killed when suicide bombers blew themselves up in the attack, officials said.

Mohammad Sajjad / AP

A police officer stands at a police station after a suicide attack in Peshawar on Feb. 24, 2012.

The Associated Press reports: Taliban suicide bombers armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked a large police station in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday, killing four officers and wounding six in an assault meant to avenge the death of a militant commander in a U.S. drone strike.

Peshawar has been a frequent target of militant attacks over the last few years, but most have been bomb blasts, not coordinated assaults in the center of the city such as Friday's attack.

City police chief Imtiaz Altaf said three militants entered the compound after attacking the main gate, then blew themselves up when police returned fire.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan told The Associated Press the attack was carried out by an affiliated group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigade.

Related content:

• Pakistan calls on Taliban to hold peace talks
• Slideshow — Pakistan: A nation in turmoil 

Arshad Arbab / EPA

A man who was injured in a blast while allegedly planting a bomb on a roadside, is wheeled into a local hospital in Peshawar on Feb. 24, 2012.

Gerry Broome / AP

In this photo taken on Thursday, instructors rig a dummy suicide bomber to explode during the operator advance course at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center & School at Fort Bragg, N.C. A scene of stomach-clenching gore confronted the special operations troops: The shredded remains of a suicide bomber, scattered around the checkpoint. But the blood and body are fake, like the Hollywood-style explosion that began a classroom exercise designed to teach these students to look past the grisly mess for the evidence that could lead to those who built the bomb.

Gerry Broome / AP

A student collects evidence at the scene of a suicide bombing during a mock exercise at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center & School at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Gerry Broome / AP

A student investigates the scene of a suicide bombing during a mock exercise at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center & School at Fort Bragg.

In the news today: Three explosions kill 11 in southern Afghanistan

Shah Marai / AFP - Getty Images

Twelve-year-old Tarana Akbari after visiting her sister who was wounded in a bomb attack against Shiite Muslims, in a hospital in Kabul on Dec, 8. Akbari was photographed crying surrounded by injured and dead relatives after surviving a bomb blast on Dec. 6 near a shrine on the Shiite holy day of Ashura. Afghanistan said the death toll from bombings targeting the Shiite Muslim holy day of Ashura, which raised fears the nation could face an eruption of sectarian violence, has climbed to 80. The twin blasts have prompted fears that Afghanistan could see the sort of sectarian violence that has pitched Shiite against Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Pakistan.

Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images

Twelve-year-old Tarana Akbari kisses her grandfather's hand as she walks on the yard with the help of her uncle (right) outside her home in Kabul on Dec. 10.

By now, you may have already seen the photo of Tarana Akbari reacting as she is surrounded by the bodies of her relatives, victims of a suicide bombing on a Shiite Muslim shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan on Dec. 6. The photo of the 12-year-old girl in her bright green dress, covered in blood became the defining image of the day's attacks, which resulted in the deaths of over 70 people, both young and old. It appeared the next day on the front pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

We now know her story. Akbari spoke about her experience to Agence France Presse, recounting the horror and fear she felt last Tuesday. That morning, she especially chose her custom-made, bright green dress for the occasion of Ashura; green is a holy color in Islam. She says:

Suddenly there was an explosion. It was as if the world had overturned, as if all the walls had collapsed on me. Little by little, I started to recognize my relatives. I screamed and I was watching as they died.

Akbari lost seven relatives in the attacks, including her 7 year-old brother, and her two sisters are still in the hospital. She was also injured, according to the Telegraph, and spent three days in the hospital due to shrapnel wounds. When she went to visit her family's grave, she was walking with a limp.

Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images

Twelve-year-old Tarana Akbari looks on at her family grave yard in Kabul on Dec. 10.

The photographer, Massoud Hossaini, who took the picture of Akbari on Dec. 6, was also interviewed by AFP. When the bomb went off, he instinctively ran in the opposite direction of the fleeing people and ended up in the same spot where the suicide bomber had been, surrounded by dead bodies. Although in a state of shock, he knew he was witnessing something that needed to be documented:

I was hoping just to reflect the real pain to everybody else, to everybody who is watching my photos. Doesn't matter [if] they are Afghans, they are American, they are Muslim, they are Christian, they are whatever. Just wanted that they know what my people are feeling now.

While still haunted by the visions of that day, he felt some solace knowing his image was widely published and helped bring attention to the suffering in Afghanistan.

For more images from Afghanistan, see our slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads.

New York Times

New York Times front page on Wednesday, Dec. 7., 2011.

There were many gruesome images of the death and devastation from yesterday's suicide bombing on a Shiite Muslim shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan. In our PhotoBlog post on the attack, we made the decision not to publish some of the more gory pictures that depicted dead bodies and people with severed limbs.

The New York Times published one of these pictures today at 4-columns on the front page of their paper. We saw this powerful image yesterday, and chose not to publish it at the time because we thought the dead bodies of children would be too disturbing to our readers. The photographer, Massoud Houssaini, was on the scene when the attack took place and was able to make strong images of people immediately reacting to the devastation. According to Houssaini's Twitter account, he sustained a "small injury on his left hand but its ok now." The image is now included in this post, below the graphic warning.

What are your thoughts about the picture? Should we have published it yesterday?

Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images

An Afghan Shia Muslim's cries near dead and injured after explosions during a religious ceremony in the center of Kabul on Dec. 6. At least 60 people were killed in an explosion at a Kabul shrine where Shia Muslims were marking the Day of Ashura Tuesday.

NBC’s Atia Abawi reports from Kabul:

See more images in the slideshow Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads.

Related:

• NYT: Amid a horrific scene, tears
• Washington Post: The Post, NYT and WSJ show same scene of Kabul carnage via different photos

Najibullah Musafer / Reuters

People react seconds after a suicide blast targeting a Shiite Muslim gathering in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Dec. 6, 2011.

Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images

Men run away after an explosion during a religious ceremony in Kabul on Dec. 6, 2011.

NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services report: 

A suicide bomber attacked a Shiite Muslim shrine in central Kabul, where a crowd of hundreds had gathered Tuesday for the festival of Ashoura, killing at least 54 people and injuring dozens more in an unprecedented sectarian attack.

The attacker blew himself up in the midst of a crowd of men, women and children. The mosque had been packed with worshippers and many who could not fit inside were outside the building.

Afghanistan has a history of tension and violence between Sunnis and the Shiite minority but while such attacks have become commonplace in neighboring Pakistan and parts of the Middle East such as Iraq, they have not previously occurred in Afghanistan.

Click here to continue reading and for the latest updates on the attack.

See more images in the slideshow Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads.

Najibullah Musafer / Reuters

A man carries a wounded boy after a suicide blast targeting a Shiite Muslim gathering in Kabul on Dec. 6, 2011.

Omar Sobhani / Reuters

A woman mourns after a suicide attack in Kabul on Dec. 6, 2011.