Fierce fighting after Taliban attack near Afghan presidential palace (Third Lead)

KABUL - Fighting raged across central Kabul Monday after an unknown number of militants occupied a building near the presidential palace and started firing on other other government facilities.

At least four Taliban bombers, a police officer were killed and 36 people were wounded between government troops and militants occupying a cinema building, officials said.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and assured Kabul citizens that the security forces were in control of the city, his office said in a statement.

The attack began during morning rush hour when militants fired at the southern gate of the palace and at the finance and justice ministries from the Foreshgah Buzerg Afghan shopping complex, where they had taken up positions.

Moments later a suicide bomber targeted another shopping center near the foreign ministry, killing and wounding several people, officials said

An hour later, another bomber detonated himself outside a cinema also in downtown Kabul, causing an unknown number of casualties, witness Abdul Halim said.

Interior ministry spokesman Zamarai Bashary confirmed that at least two militants had taken up positions in the cinema and the area was surrounded by the security forces.

Sporadic gunfire was still heard from the area as thick smoke billowed from city’s two main shopping centres in the heart of the capital city.

In the first building, from where the fighting expanded across central Kabul, two bombers detonated explosives near the presidential palace and two others were killed by Afghan security forces, Bashary said.

He said one police officer was also killed and four others were wounded, while an defence ministry spokesman said that two army soldiers were also wounded.

Bashary said almost all the buildings occupied by the militants had been cleared and security forces were searching for the remaining militants in the area.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location that as many as 20 Taliban fighters and suicide bombers had entered the city to target government buildings, including the presidential palace.

NATO said in a statement that it was assisting Afghan forces to contain the militants, and NATO and Afghan helicopters were hovering over the neighbourhood where the fighting was taking place.

Farid Rahid, spokesman for the public health ministry, said 36 wounded people, mostly civilians, had so far been taken to city hospitals.

Private television channel Tolo cited hospitals reporting that five people were killed, but Rahid could not confirm the deaths.

At least one rocket hit the garden of the Serena Hotel, the only five-star hotel in Kabul, one of its foreign guests said.

Mujahid claimed that several foreigners had been killed at the Serena Hotel, adjacent to the shopping centre, but the hotel guest said they had been moved to the basement for their safety.

The attack took place on the same day that President Hamid Karzai was to swear in his new cabinet at the presidential palace.

Authorities had deployed a heavy security presence on Kabul’s streets because the government had feared a Taliban attack on the capital.

Speaker Younus Qanooni told parliament days ago that the Taliban had stolen armoured vehicles to carry out an attack in Kabul. Another legislator said one of those vehicles was used in Monday’s attack.

NATO forces were “working closely with our Afghan partners to aggressively contain the situation during which several small explosions were reported near the Feroshgah e Afghan Shopping Center and the Serena Hotel”, the alliance said in a statement.

“Insurgents also used small-arms fire in these attacks,” it said.

A witness at the Central Bank, adjacent to the palace and in front of the shopping centre, said he saw two security officials shot and wounded.

Taliban fighters have carried out several attacks involving several bombers against government buildings in Kabul, but Monday’s incident seemed to be their most brazen assault.

The militants attacked a UN guesthouse in Kabul city Oct 28, killing six international workers and forcing the world body to evacuate more than half of its foreign staff from Kabul.