Taliban militants stormed the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing at least six people, none of them diplomatic staff, officials said on Friday.

Extremists rammed the outer wall of the diplomatic building with a truck bomb before battling security forces during the night.

A local source said the blast and subsequent firefight also wounded 120 people, causing extensive damage to neighboring buildings and shattered windows as far as 3 miles away, a NATO spokesman said.

The Taliban said the attack was in retaliation for NATO airstrikes against a village near the northern city of Kunduz last week in which more than 30 people, many of them children, were killed.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his country would review its lead role in the international mission in northern Afghanistan, where violence has escalated sharply during 2016.

The Taliban overthrew the Afghan government in 1996 and ruled for five years, applying oppressive policies against the people of Afghanistan, especially women, and adopting an extremist interpretation of Islamic law.

The Taliban ousted following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and since then the extremist group has resorted to insurgent warfare against foreign troops as a means to wrest back power.