Afghan security forces repel Taliban attack on Kabul airport

Gunmen used rockets to attack Kabul International Airport in the Afghan capital before dawn on Thursday, a senior military official said. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

The gunmen occupied two buildings, which were under construction, 700 yards north of the airport, and were using them as a base to fire rockets and gunfire toward the airport and ISAF jet fighters flying over Kabul, said Afzal Aman, an Afghan army general in Kabul.

Kabul Police Chief Mohammed Zahir Zahir later said that four of the attackers were killed and that the attack was halted without any civilian or police casualties.

The airport was later reopened and operations returned to normal, Zahir said, after security forces inspected the runways for shrapnel and explosives.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, in a call to The Associated Press, claimed responsibility for the attack. Aman said several rockets hit the airport but no planes were damaged.

The AFP and Reuters news agencies reported security sources as saying the fighting ended at about 9 a.m. local time, with the deaths of all attackers.

"Four terrorists were killed by police special forces. The area is being cleared now, there are no casualties to our forces," Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told Reuters.

The attack came with about two dozen explosions and barrages of gunfire as fighter jets circled the airport.

Kabul International has two halves, one civilian and one military. The attack focused on the military side, managing to get through despite high security. 

The attack comes after a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives near a busy market and a mosque in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 89 people in the deadliest insurgent attack on civilians since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

A Kabul airport official told the Reuters news agency that all flights had been diverted to other cities.

In such circumstances, passenger planes are immediately diverted to Afghan cities such as Mazar-i-Sharif in the north or Herat in the west.

The predawn attack came during a tense time in Afghanistan, as a recount is underway from the second round of a disputed presidential election. Last week U.S Secretary of State John Kerry helped broker a deal to carry out a full audit of last month's presidential runoff after allegations of fraud by supporters of both candidates.

Unofficial and disputed preliminary results showed former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai well ahead of his rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, but Abdullah's supporters have said that is only because of widespread fraud.

Since fraud was alleged on both sides, the deal provides that every one of the 8 million ballots will be audited under national and international supervision over the next three or four weeks.

Neither the election nor the weekend deal has had any visible effect on security in the country, which has long seen near-daily attacks.

Al Jazeera and wire services. Jennifer Glasse contributed to this report.