KABUL — A Taliban suicide bomber tried to assassinate the influential new chief of Afghanistan’s intelligence service at an agency guesthouse in Kabul on Thursday, officials said, in a brazen attack that left him seriously wounded and underscored the insurgency’s ability to go after those at the highest levels of the government.

The attack — against Asadullah Khalid, who had just taken over the National Directorate of Security in September — sidelined a man who had emerged as one of the insurgency’s fiercest opponents.