Suicide bombers have struck across Afghanistan in co-ordinated attacks, with explosions and gunfire rocking the diplomatic area of Kabul as Taliban fighters took over buildings and tried to enter parliament.
Outside the capital on Sunday, attackers also targeted government buildings in Logar province, the airport in Jalalabad, and a police facility in the town of Gardez in Paktya province.
A Taliban spokesman said the violence marked the start of their annual spring offensive which heralds the fighting season, adding that "a lot of suicide bombers" were involved.
The attacks are among the most serious on the capital since US-backed Afghan forces removed the group from power in 2001.
Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Kabul, said gun battles were still raging in parts of the capital.
"There are still three ongoing incidents in Kabul. We understand there is an occupied building very close to the Kabul Star hotel where we were trapped earlier. [Authorities] suspect there are five Taliban fighters holded up in that building. There is another incident going on across the street from parliament buidling," Smith said.
'Spectacular' attack
The Taliban said the main targets were the German and British embassies, and the headquarters of Afghanistan's NATO-led force.
The co-ordinated attacks are bound to intensify concern in the run-up to the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
The assault appeared to repeat the tactics of an attack in Kabul last September when fighters entered construction sites in several places to use them as positions for rocket and gun attacks.
Taliban spokesman Mujahid said it had been easy to bring fighters into the capital, and that they had had inside help to move heavy weapons into place.
Afghan security forces, who are responsible for the safety of the capital, were scrambling to reinforce areas around the so-called "Green Zone" diplomatic section of the city centre.
Attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade that landed just outside the front gate of a house used by British diplomats in the city centre and smoke billowed from the area after the blast, a witness told the Reuters news agency.
Two rockets hit a British embassy guard tower near the Reuters office in the city, with embassy sources saying staff were in a lock-down.
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