Taliban suicide bombers targeted guesthouses in the centre of Kabul on Friday, killing 16 people including Westerners in one of the deadliest attacks on the Afghan capital in a year.
The Islamist militia, which is waging a vicious insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government and more than 121,000 foreign troops based in the country, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to AFP.
A huge explosion and at least two smaller blasts rang out around downtown Kabul soon after dawn as Afghanistan commemorated the birth of Muslim prophet Mohammed.
An Italian, a Frenchman and four Indians were among the dead, officials said.
The assault took place near the Park Residence Hotel in the Shar-I-Naw commerical district, where terrified people escaped through windows and climbed down scaffolding, said an AFP photographer and a reporter.
Shattered glass carpeted the road outside the hotel, frequented by Westerners and where many employees come from India. AFP correspondents said a body in a police uniform was brought out from the building.
"There were three bombers. One in the car which exploded, the two others at the Park Residence," said Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, Kabul city criminal police chief.
They appear to have targeted the Park Residence and on the main road through Shar-I-Naw, and the smaller Aria guesthouse on a side street off the opposite side of the road.
The interior ministry said one of the attackers detonated a car bomb in front of the Aria guesthouse, and two other would-be bombers were shot dead in the Park Residence.
Witnesses said the explosion was so big that the car was destroyed, the engine was thrown about 15 metres (yards) away, a huge crater was left in the road in front of the Aria, and some body parts were strewn around the site.
The Italian man staying at the Park Residence was shot dead by militants after being in direct telephone contact with Afghan police during the attack, Kabul police chief General Abdul Rahman told a news conference.
Four other Italians were rescued by Afghan security forces, he said.
Sporadic gunfire rattled through the area as ambulances raced to the scene and grey smoke billowed into the air. Witnesses said people in pyjamas were led from the Park Resident and taken away in ambulances.
Attacks on guesthouses used by foreigners have increased in recent months. Five UN staff were killed in a similar assault on October 28. Eight people were killed in a suicide attack near a guesthosue and hotel on December 15.
Friday's assault was the worst attack in Kabul since thousands of US-led troops launched a major offensive to capture a key Taliban bastion in southern Afghanistan as part of a new strategy to end an eight-year war.
The interior ministry put Friday's death toll at 16 in what was one of the deadliest attacks in Kabul since three Taliban suicide bombers killed at least 26 people on February 11, 2009.
A Taliban spokesman claimed the attack.
"There were eight of our people. One of them detonated his car bomb in front of the Indians' hotel, two others also carried out suicide bombings. The rest of our people are still there," Zabihullah Mujahed told AFP by telephone.
The assault came one day after the Afghan flag was raised over the town of Marjah, the focus of a massive US-led offensive designed to evict Taliban militants and reinstate government control in southern Afghanistan.
Around 15,000 US, Afghan and NATO forces are pursuing Operation Mushtarak (Together), billed as the biggest military campaign since the 2001 US-led invasion brought down the Taliban regime.
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 US President Barack Obama's surge of thousands more troops.
The Park Residence was attacked in mid-2005, when a suicide bomber struck the hotel's Internet cafe, at the time one of the few in the city and as such popular with foreigners and young Afghans alike.
Afghan television showed footage of Indians receiving treatment in hospital, with one man telling Tolo TV that a bullet grazed his head.
Tolo said 12 Indian doctors were staying at one of the targeted guesthouses.
