At least 20 people were killed yesterday when the Taliban launched a coordinate attacks against several government buildings in Kabul just before the arrival of the new US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The insurgents, most said to have been wearing "suicide vests", shot security guards and employees in the offices. They stormed the justice ministry and a prisons department office. At one point the justice minister hid inside his building as mayhem gripped the area.
Five men armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked the ministry and held it for about two hours before Afghan security forces regained control.
Police claimed to have killed all eight of the attackers. More than 50 people were injured in the raid.
The Taliban said they had acted in response to the poor treatment of militants held in government custody. Afghanistan was quick to blame neighbouring Pakistan.
The attacks, demonstrating the Taliban's ability to strike even within the heavily fortified centre of Kabul, came as the US seeks a strategy to stem the violence engulfing Afghanistan.
Witnesses said the attackers opened fire indiscriminately in front of the justice ministry headquarters.
Officials said five men stormed the building equipped with AK-47s, grenades and wearing suicide vests. At least two suicide bombers separately attacked the prison affairs department in the same complex.
Security forces said they prevented another possible raid by shooting a suicide attacker next to the buildings of the foreign-affairs and education ministries.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a French military officer and an Afghan interpreter were killed, and a French soldier seriously wounded, in a gun battle following a landmine blast on Wednesday.
The men were on security patrol in Logar province when the explosion occurred, a French military spokesman said..