“The Taliban has done a good job of grabbing headlines over the last several weeks with spectacular attacks”, Army Colonel Steve Warren told a briefing. Taliban claimed the responsibility for the assault, the militant group said the parliament is “under siege by martyrdom-seeking mujahedeen” their description for suicide attackers.
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The area has now been cordoned off by members of the Afghan National Security Forces.
According to the Interior Ministry, six gunmen were killed as the attack was brought to an end.
The insurgents have also been advancing across the country’s north, capturing two districts of the Kunduz province in as many days.
The attack reportedly started when a Taliban suicide bomber driving a vehicle full of explosives stopped outside the parliament gates in Kabul and detonated the bombs.
Media quoted parliament officials as saying that all the seven attackers have been killed by special forces. “It is over now”, he said.
Taliban attackers struck the Afghan parliament building in Kabul on Monday, forcing government officials to evacuate as explosions and gunfire sounded. The vote was delayed by the attack.
Kunduz was the final major city held by the Taliban before it fell to US-backed mujahideen forces after the 9/11 attacks. The militant group’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told The Associated Press by telephone that it targeted Stanekzai and the parliament itself. All the MPs left the building safely.
NPR’s Philip Reeves reports that police say all of the militants were killed by Afghan security forces and more than a dozen civilians were injured. Parents could be seen racing toward the building, shouting out the names of their children.
“We commend the role of Afghan security forces in effectively countering this act of terrorism”, said Foreign Office Spokesman Qazi Khalilullah in a statement.
However a neighbouring district in the same province, Dasht-e-Archi, remains in rebel hands a day after they took it.
Although there are more than 300 districts in Afghanistan, the Taliban now has control of only four districts, although several others are in danger of falling to insurgents within the next few days and weeks.
President Ashraf Ghani met lawmakers from Kunduz at his Kabul palace to discuss the crisis, vowing “serious measures to retake lost territories and clear (the) northeastern zone of terrorists”.
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An Afghan soldier has been greeted as a hero and presented with keys to a new home for killing six of the seven insurgents who tried to storm parliament on Monday.
