Taliban claim attack on guesthouse in Afghanistan's capital

An all-night siege in an upscale neighborhood of Afghanistan's capital ended in the early hours of Wednesday morning with the deaths of four heavily armed attackers, though no civilians or security personnel were injured or killed, an Afghan official said.

Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Ayub Salangi said that weapons had been seized, including a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, three automatic rifles and a hand grenade.

Using his official Twitter account, Salangi said there were "no civilian or military casualties."

The siege ended after 5 a.m. in a sustained barrage of automatic weapons fire and a series of huge explosions that resounded across the Wazir Akbar Khan district of downtown Kabul, home to many embassies and foreign firms.

Salangi had said earlier that the target of the attack appeared to be a guesthouse, but he gave no further details.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in tweets on a recognized Twitter account. They referred to the target as "belonging to the occupiers," reiterating the insurgents' message that foreign installations are specific targets in the Afghan capital.

The firefight in the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, which is home to several embassies, began just after 11 p.m. local time, with heavy explosions accompanying sporadic automatic weapon fire.

Police could not be immediately reached for comment, though officers could be seen blocking off roads into the area. Police officers later smashed lights throughout the upscale neighborhood to cover their movements.

As dawn broke about 4 a.m. sustained gunfire erupted across the neighborhood again, broken by a series of explosions, including one huge blast that sent clouds of black smoke into the air.

Salangi said earlier that a guesthouse appeared to be the target of the attack, without specifically naming the Rabbani. 

The guesthouse, once known as the Heetal Hotel, was damaged in a December 2009 suicide car bomb attack near the home of former Afghan Vice President Ahmad Zia Massoud — brother of legendary anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was killed in an Al-Qaeda suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. That 2009 attack killed eight people and wounded nearly 40.

The hotel is owned by the Rabbani family, who include the late Burhanuddin Rabbani, who served as president of Afghanistan from 1992 until 1996, and current Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani.

The Kabul attack comes amid intensified fighting across many parts of Afghanistan since the Taliban launched their warm weather offensive a month ago.

Fighting was also reported in the southern province of Kandahar on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, in the eastern province of Wardak, four suicide bombers attacked a local court, with all four of the assailants reported killed, along with two police officers.

Taliban fighters attacked a guesthouse days earlier this month in Kabul, killing an American, a British citizen, an Italian, four Indian nationals, five Afghans and two Pakistanis. The United Nations already has documented a record high number of civilian casualties — 974 killed and 1,963 injured — in the first four months of 2015, a 16 percent increase over the same period last year.

Afghan security forces have been struggling to fend off Taliban attacks since U.S. and NATO forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of last year.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in the first three months of 2015, civilian casualties from ground fighting increased by eight percent on the same period last year.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press