Ten people, including two Spanish police officers, died in a Taliban attack on a Spanish Embassy compound in the Afghan capital and an ensuing gun battle, a almost 12-hour incident that ended early Saturday and represented a new show of force by the insurgents.
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The diplomatic district of Kabul was rocked by an explosion and gunfire Friday, December 11th.
“Afghan Police Special Forces have killed all the attackers who were involved in last night terrorist attack in Kabul”, information ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said in a tweet.
The attack follows a deadly 27-hour Taliban siege of Kandahar airport this week as the militants ramp up attacks.
Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and the US government are trying to draw the Taliban back into peace talks 14 years after an invasion that has killed more than 2,200 American soldiers and cost taxpayers more than $700 billion.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack, which caused some damage to the Spanish Embassy and killed two Spanish police officers, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s administration confirmed.
The attack, the latest in a series of assaults on foreign targets in Kabul, began at about 6pm on Friday when a suicide attacker detonated a vehicle bomb near the guest house, allowing three gunmen to take up positions and open fire on security forces.
In Madrid, the Spanish government said all other embassy staff had been evacuated from the site and were receiving treatment.
It also joined calls for an independent investigation into the attack on the hospital, which it said may amount to a war crime if it were proved to be deliberate.
The Kabul attack came two days after another massive Taliban attack on the main airport in the southern city of Kandahar, which lasted more than 24 hours and killed more than 50 people.
“By mounting big attacks, the Taliban are making clear that they are not interested in peace talks”, Kabul-based analyst Jawed Kohistani told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
As the country grappled with the aftermath, Afghanistan’s spy chief, Mr Rahmatullah Nabil, on Thursday quit his post, laying bare disagreements with Mr Ghani over his diplomatic outreach to Pakistan, which has always been blamed for nurturing the Taleban.
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“The mujahideen are making rapid military gains, capturing territory and destroying enemy centres”, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter.
