The Taliban has claimed responsibility for an overnight attack on a guesthouse in the diplomatic enclave of the Afghan capital that ended after a stand-off with Afghan government forces.
The Afghan interior ministry said the militants had been armed with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and other weapons. All four attackers were killed today and no other casualties were reported.
The attack targeted a guesthouse owned by a prominent Afghan political family, Kabul's police chief said, declining to provide details on the occupants.
Explosions and gunfire continued to be heard after 4am (local time), more than five hours after the attack began.
Afghan and Western security sources said the compound was known to be used by foreigners, but it was unclear if any were in the guesthouse at the time.
Teams of elite Afghan security forces were deployed to the guesthouse area, an upscale part of the capital where many embassies and government buildings are located.
The Taliban as been waging an Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan since being toppled by a United States-led coalition in 2001.
Kabul has been hit by a series of high-profile attacks on foreigners and government targets over the past two weeks.
The Taliban targeted the Park Palace hotel on May 13, killing more than a dozen people. The largest number of casualties were Afghan civilians, but an American, a British-Afghan national, four Indians, an Italian and a Kazakh were also among the dead.
NATO's 13-year combat mission officially ended in December last year and the small contingent that remains in the country is mostly focused on training Afghan security forces.
Afghan civilians, however, are bearing the brunt of the bloody conflict that has escalated around the country as foreign troops have withdrawn.
Following the deadly hotel attack two weeks ago, an European Union vehicle was bombed a few days later, near Kabul's airport, in a blast that killed a British security contractor and at least two Afghan civilians.
