KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban launched a rare attack on targets in the western Afghan city of Herat on Monday, including a NATO base, killing at least four people and wounding at least 38.

Operating far from the insurgents’ usual areas and in a city considered among the safest in Afghanistan, the attackers set off a suicide car bomb in front of the Provincial Reconstruction Team headquarters, which is under Italian command, and nearly simultaneously detonated a second bomb elsewhere in the city, according to Col. Noor Khan Nekzad, spokesman for the Herat chief of police.