Militants attack government and Nato buildings in Kabul

Militants attack government and Nato buildings in Kabul

Dramatic Nato footage shows sustained gunfire as troops battle insurgents
Police are still exchanging fire with at least one gunman holed up in an unfinished high-rise building overlooking the diplomatic quarter.


Six people have been killed and 16 injured, Kabul's police chief said.


The Taliban said they were behind the violence.


A short time ago, one of the suicide attackers still inside the high-rise building detonated his explosives, reports the BBC's Quentin Sommerville, in Kabul.


At least one attacker remains on the ninth floor of the building, our correspondent says.


Police killed four insurgents, police chief General Ayub told the BBC.


"The attackers were wearing burkas. They were travelling in a minivan," Gen Ayub said. "We don't have female police officers to search females."


Nato and the US embassy said none of their staff were casualties of the attack. A US embassy spokesperson said four Afghans were hurt, but none of them had life-threatening injuries.


"We appreciate the response of the Afghan National Security Forces whose operations stopped the attack on the embassy compound," the embassy said in a statement.


Gen Ayub said the insurgents wanted to carry out attacks in Kabul to coincide with the 10th anniversary of 9/11.


Nato said the attack was an attempt to derail the security handover to Afghan-led forces, as international troops begin to withdraw from Afghanistan.


Co-ordinated attack
Tuesday's attacks appear to be a complex operation. At about 13:30 local time (09:00 GMT), insurgents fired rockets on a number of targets in Kabul's upmarket embassy district.


In the west of the city, another two suicide attackers detonated explosives outside a police station.


A third was killed as he tried to make it into the airport. A jail run by the intelligence service was also a target.


Six gunmen took over an unfinished high-rise building near the Abdul Haq roundabout, overlooking the embassy district, and used it to fire on the Nato compound and US embassy.


A Taliban spokesman said the group was carrying out "a massive suicide attack on local and foreign intelligence facilities".


Dozens of soldiers were ushered into bunkers and the dining hall, where they loaded their weapons and placed chairs against the doors to prevent any incursion. At the same time, militants at three other locations started their attacks. Two suicide bombers killed themselves in the west of the city, near the country's parliament, while a would-be suicide bomber near the airport was shot dead before he could detonate the 7kgs of explosives he had strapped to his body. Meanwhile, the insurgents in the 13-storey building were proving a resilient foe. The choice of location was no surprise – in a low-rise city, 13 floors is considered a skyscraper. This was why it was chosen, a Taliban spokesman announced as the attack continued.


The spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the militants had come armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and 82mm shoulder-held rockets. "It's a very high building and with the targets we had we could easily attack from there – like Isaf HQ, like US embassy, like NDS office and other administrations."


In response, Afghan police on the ground were firing haphazardly at the building but the muzzle flashes and rockets kept coming. At least 10 explosions could be heard across the city as the insurgents brought most of the city to a standstill. Nato helicopters were scrambled, firing on the building before they pulled away, replaced by Afghan ministry of interior helicopters who launched only a brief assault on the building.


The commander of the Afghan police's crisis response unit, Colonel Ghulam Daoud, said he directed police on the ground to stop firing at the building as his SAS-trained men moved in.


"It's a very big building with lots of rooms," he said. "We are on the fourth floor. They are on the fifth and sixth floor." By nightfall one militant was still believed to be inside. At 9pm, Kabul police chief General Mohammad Ayub Salangi said the attack was over and the militants were all dead but his men were checking the building for boobytraps.


Around the city, four police and two civilians lay dead, he added. A further 18 civilians were wounded. The US embassy later said four people in the embassy grounds were wounded, including three Afghan visa applicants and one local guard. None of their injuries were life-threatening.


The attack is the latest in a series of high-profile attacks in Kabul, including last month's storming of the British Council, and is likely to further undermine Afghans' belief that their security forces are unable to prevent – or even adequately combat – the insurgents.


President Hamid Karzai praised the security forces and said their "timely reaction demonstrates their improved ability". He said the attacks were designed to affect the process of transition of security responsibilities to Afghans: "The attacks cannot stop the process [transition] from taking place and cannot affect, but rather embolden our people's determination in taking the responsibility for their country's own affairs.


Nato was equally bullish. "We are witnessing the Taliban trying to test transition but they can't stop it. Transition is on track and it will continue," said Nato's secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.