The assault, one of the most serious on the capital since U.S.-backed Afghan forces removed the Taliban from power in 2001, highlighted the ability of militants to strike the heavily guarded diplomatic zone even after more than 10 years of war.
It was also another election-year setback in Afghanistan for U.S. President Barack Obama, who wants to present the long campaign against the Taliban as a success before the departure of most foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
“These attacks are the beginning of the spring offensive and we had planned them for months,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters.
He said the onslaught was revenge for a series of incidents involving American troops in Afghanistan – including the burning of Korans at a NATO base and the massacre of 17 civilians by a U.S. soldier – and vowed that there would be more such attacks.
Fighting was still raging after nightfall, more than nine hours after the Taliban first struck following midday prayers.
The Taliban said the main targets were the German and British embassies and the headquarters of the NATO-led force. Several Afghan members of parliament joined security forces repelling attackers from a roof near the parliament.
Large explosions shook the diplomatic sector of Kabul. Billows of black smoke rose from embassies while rocket-propelled grenades whizzed overhead.
Heavy gunfire could be heard from many directions as Afghan security forces tried to repel Taliban fighters.
Four insurgents were also detained in Kabul over a near-simultaneous assassination attempt on Afghan Vice President Karim Khalili, with Afghanistan’s spy agency saying they belonged to the militant Haqqani network, based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area.
The four were intercepted by security forces before the other attacks got underway, said Afghan intelligence agency spokesman Lutfullah Mashal.
Other insurgent fighters, some dressed in women’s head-to-toe covering burqas, launched attacks in three other provinces. In the eastern city of Jalalabad, they attacked a foreign force base near a school and a blast went off near the airport.
The Ministry of Interior said 19 insurgents, including suicide bombers, had died in the attacks across the country and two were captured. Fourteen police officers and nine civilians were wounded.
FAMILIAR TACTICS
The attacks in Kabul come a month before a NATO summit at which the United States and its allies are supposed to put finishing touches on plans for transition to Afghan security control, and days before a meeting of defence and foreign ministers in Brussels to prepare for the alliance’s summit in Chicago.
They also came just as Western forces prepare to leave as part of a plan to hand over responsibilities to the Afghan forces by 2014.
That may prompt some to draw comparisons with the 1968 Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. There are major differences in the scale and length of the events and casualties but the assault may still challenge assertions that America is winning.
Afghan security forces apparently failed to learn lessons from a similar operation in Kabul last September, when insurgents entered construction sites to use them as positions for rocket and gun attacks.
Yesterday, insurgents entered a multi-storey construction site overlooking the diplomatic triangle and behind a supermarket. There they unleashed rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire, protected from the view of security forces by green protective netting wrapped around the skeleton of the building.
