Assault on US embassy in Kabul ended after 20 hours

Smoke rises from the US Embassy as it gets evacuated An assault by Taliban insurgents on the heart of Kabul’s diplomatic and military enclave has ended after 20 hours, with security forces killing the last of six attackers. “The operation ended after the final six terrorists were killed by police. Details on the number of casualties will be released later,” the Afghan Ministry of Interior spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, said on Twitter. It is believed that no foreign nationals were injured, with both the US and nearby-UK embassy confirming that all of their personnel were safe.
The attack began on Tuesday afternoon, local time, with suicide fighters launching a multi-pronged attack on the US embassy and NATO headquarters. Setting themselves up in a seven story building that overlooked the compound, the insurgents fired machine guns and rocket propelled grenades at the buildings.  One rocket broke through the US Embassy walls, forcing staff to flee the building.
A loud speaker message warned embassy staff of the seriousness of the situation.
“This isn’t drill, so if you are somewhere safe, then stay there.”
There were also three suicide attacks in the city’s west and near the airport. In western Kabul, just a few kilometres from the US embassy, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at the entrance to a building belonging to the city\'s civil order police. One policeman was killed and two were injured.
A second suicide bomber killed one civilian and wounded four others at the regional police centre, near the Habibia high school. And at a road near the airport, a suicide bomber carrying 7 kg (15.5 lb) of explosives was killed by police, the office of the Kabul police chief said in a statement.
The spokesman for Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Afghan security forces were backed by NATO and Afghan attack helicopters. They worked to clear the building that the insurgents were using floor-by-floor, making this the longest sustained attack on the capital since the US-led invasion a decade ago.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the assaults had aimed to thwart US plans to hand over security to Afghan forces.
\"We are following the events closely; we have confidence in the Afghan authorities\' ability to deal with this situation,\" Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels.
Hamid Karzai pledged that those attacks will not impact the handover of security to Afghan forces that is slated for 2014.
However, the embassy attack has demonstrated the depth of the Taliban’s penetration in the Afghan security forces, as many observers believe that it could not have taken place without internal assistance.
The insurgents were armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47 assault rifles and suicide bomb vests, prompting speculation the weapons and ammunition had been hidden in the building before the attack.
“There was almost certainly either a break-down in security among the Afghans with responsibility for Kabul or an intelligence failure,” said Andrew Exum, fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
The head of the parliamentary committee for internal security, Mohamed Naeem Humeidzai, believes that the type and size of the attacks suggests that the insurgents received assistance from Afghan security officials.
He argues that it would be otherwise impossible to carry out an attack on such a scale in an area with such a heavy security presence.
A Western official told France 24 that the attacks made the idea of a reconciliation with the Taliban “absurd.”
The assault was the second big attack in Kabul in the past month, after suicide bombers attacked the British Council headquarters in mid-August, killing nine people.
In late June, insurgents also launched an assault on a Kabul hotel that is frequented by Westerners, killing at least 10.