KABUL — Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers attacked buildings across the heart of Kabul on Monday, killing at least five people including a child and triggering fierce gun battles with security forces.
Fires were blazing after two shopping centres, a cinema and the only five-star hotel in the Afghan capital were targeted by heavily-armed militants, setting off a wave of explosions, witnesses and officials said.
Five people were killed and 38 others wounded, the public health ministry said, in the most spectacular strike on Kabul since Taliban militants laid siege to government buildings in February 2009, killing at least 26 people.
Defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said a child was among the dead, also telling Afghan television that "four terrorists" had been killed -- two who blew themselves up and another two shot dead by security forces.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said security had now been restored in the highly-fortified capital after hours of fighting.
The Taliban, waging an increasingly deadly insurgency against the Western-backed government and foreign forces in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they had sent in 20 suicide bombers.
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