Four government employees in western Kabul were shot dead by gunmen on Tuesday, officials said. 

Kabul police spokesman Ferdows Faramarz said the victims were employees of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. 

A spokesman for the ministry said they were on their way to the volatile Maidan Wardak Province in central Afghanistan when the gunmen stopped and killed them. 

Faramarz said an investigation by a joint security team was ongoing. 

He didn’t give further details. 

According to a quarterly report by the United States Special Inspector-General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, killings and magnetic bomb attacks have increased in Kabul in recent months, targeting government officials, activists, and journalists.

In another development on Tuesday morning, at least one person was wounded in a magnetic bomb blast, security officials said. 

There was no claim of responsibility for the majority of the attacks happening in the Afghan capital. 

Both the Taliban and the Islamic State militants are active in the country.

(dpa/NAN)