Sixteen killed in Taliban attacks in central Kabul

A suicide bomber killed at least 16 people, including four Indian nationals, and wounded 32 others near an upmarket shopping and hotel complex in the heart of Kabul on Friday, and police shot dead two other would-be attackers, officials said.

Witnesses reported at least two smaller blasts around the Safi Landmark complex as police cordoned off the area, ambulances rushed to the scene and sporadic gunfire was heard.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attacks on behalf of the Islamist militants.

"Our mujahidi (holy warrior) fighters managed to attack in the heart of Kabul city once again," Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

He said at least five Taliban fighters launched the attack. Two suicide bombers detonated explosives-packed vests near the hotel and the City Centre shopping mall. Three fighters were still holed up in the basement of the shopping centre, he said.

A police official said there was still sporadic firing from the basement. "The situation is under control," said the police official, who asked not to be identified.

The attack came as NATO-led foreign troops and Afghan forces press ahead with an offensive against the Taliban in their stronghold in southern Helmand province, a key element of Washington's new strategy to put down a growing insurgency.

The heavily fortified center of Kabul has been relatively calm since Jan. 18, when Taliban gunmen stormed the city's commercial heart, taking over buildings, detonating suicide vests and killing at least five people.

Fridays, the Muslim holiday, are the quietest day of the week in Kabul but the city's diplomatic "green zone" was immediately sealed off to traffic and loudspeaker announcements in Dari and English told residents to stay indoors.

Our mujahidi fighters managed to attack in the heart of Kabul city once again

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid

Bodies

"In our hospital we have seven bodies," said General Ahmadzia Yaftali, head of the Afghan army medical operations.

Another three bodies had been taken to a nearby hospital run by the Afghan government's intelligence agency, he said.

"A suicide bomber detonated himself in front of a kebab shop near the Safi Landmark," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

"Two other suicide bombers were shot dead by police in the same area," he said, while playing down witness reports that other gunmen had entered the Safi Landmark buildings.

Shattered glass carpeted the road outside the Park Residence Hotel, a guesthouse frequented by foreigners in the centre of the city. An AFP reporter on the scene said there appeared to be a large crater in the road outside.

Police commandos were seen using ladders to scale the glass outside wall of the guesthouse.

The low-rise hotel overlooks Sar-I-Naw Park -- popular with men who attend cock fights and volleyball matches -- and is adjacent to the eight-story City Center shopping mall and Safi Landmark Hotel.

The Park Residence was the scene of a suicide bomb attack in mid-2005, when a bomber struck the hotel's Internet cafe, at the time was one of the few in the city and so popular with foreigners and young Afghans alike.

Until recently it was regular haunt of aid workers and private contractors.

Since a Dec. 18 attack on another guesthouse in a neighboring suburb, in which at least five U.N. workers were killed, U.N. staff have been banned from staying anywhere but secure apartment blocks elsewhere in the city.

Operation Mushtarak

Friday's attack came as around 15,000 U.S., Afghan and NATO forces pursue Operation Mushtarak (Together), billed as the biggest military campaign since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion brought down the Taliban regime.

After 12 days of fighting, Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan, had welcomed Thursday's flag-hoisting in Marjah as "a new beginning" as Afghan government authority was restored.

The operation is aimed at seizing control of the Marjah and Nad Ali areas of Helmand from the Taliban and drug lords, in the first big test of U.S. President Barack Obama's surge of thousands more troops.

Despite numerous military offensives, much of southern Afghanistan has remained beset by violence since the fall of the Taliban regime.

NATO and Afghan leaders say security and rebuilding must follow the latest military assault around Marjah, to ensure the Taliban do not return.

In contrast to the celebratory language from foreign and Afghan government officials, the Taliban said their fighters still held sway outside the main Marjah bazaar in the southern province of Helmand.