Militants fire rockets at US embassy injuring 16 and killing one
Militants fire rockets at US embassy injuring 16 and killing oneThe Taliban launched a coordinated assault on Kabul yesterday as rockets were fired at the US and other embassies and two suicide bombers struck elsewhere in the city.
Fighting back: Afghanistan's security forces secure the area near the
building where attackers wearing suicide vests and carrying guns were
firing from in Kabul. Afghan commandos run towards the site of an
on-going attack in Kabul. Pic/AFPInsurgents took over a multi-storey building near the heavily-fortified diplomatic district of the Afghan capital, firing rockets at several embassies and NATO compounds.
In western Kabul, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the entrance to a police building ufffd killing an officer.
A second suicide bomber wounded two people when he detonated his device near the Habibia high school. A third was shot dead by police near Kabul airport.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, "We have launched attacks on a road near the airport targeting police and two other areas in the west against security forces."
There were reports the gang who took over the empty building in Wazir Akbar Khan were 10 in number and armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and shoulder-held rockets.
The US embassy said its personnel were safe after the attack as British Ambassador Sir William Patey confirmed it had been a target.
One rocket hit a school bus, but it appeared to have been empty at the time of impact. Four wounded civilians had been taken to hospitals, a deputy health minister said.u00a0u00a0u00a0
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group was armed with rocket-propelled grenades, suicide bomb vests and AK-47s, and was targeting government buildings, the US embassy and the headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
He also confirmed that the group had sent two suicide attackers to west Kabul, and said they had attacked a military convoy near the airport. The last claim could not be verified.u00a0u00a0
Attacks in Afghanistan>>u00a0Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001.
>> Taliban attackers laid siege to a British cultural centre in the Afghan capital in mid-August, killing at least nine people during a long assault on the 92nd anniversary of Afghanistan's independence from British rule.u00a0u00a0
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>> In late June, insurgents launched an assault on a hotel in the capital frequented by Westerners, killing at least 10 people
