'Spectacular' raids on Afghan ministries kill 28

KABUL (Agencies) - Eight Taliban gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked three Afghan government buildings Wednesday in a coordinated assault that killed 20 people in Kabul.
The attacks in a capital city dense with barricades and armed guards underscored the difficulty of fending off the Taliban even with abundant troops and weaponry as the US beefs up its presence.
Five men armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked the Justice Ministry in late morning, shooting at workers and temporarily trapping the minister and scores of others inside, witnesses said. The gunmen appeared to hold the building for about two hours before Afghan security forces regained control about midday.
At about the same time, two men in suicide vests blew themselves up at the ministry's correction department across town. A third assailant in a suicide vest was shot as he tried to force his way into the Education Ministry, about one kilometre from the Justice Ministry attack, said Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.
At least 20 people were killed in the attacks and 57 wounded, said Mohammad Hanif Atmar, the interior minister. All eight attackers died, Azimi said, bringing the total death toll to 28.
Zabiullah Mujaheed, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the attacks were in response to the alleged mistreatment of Taliban prisoners in Afghan government jails. "We have warned the Afghan government to stop torturing our prisoners," Mujaheed said in a phone call from an undisclosed location. "Today we attacked Justice Ministry compounds."
The assailants sent three text messages to their leader in Pakistan before launching the assault, said Amrullah Saleh, chief of Afghanistan's intelligence agency.
Saleh said officials had intelligence indicating a 'spectacular' attack involving multiple suicide bombers was imminent, but said they did not have enough specifics to prevent it.
He compared the attacks to the assault on hotels, markets and a train station in Mumbai last November that killed 164 in India.
The incident comes as Richard Holbrooke, US President Barack Obama's newly-appointed envoy to the region, is expected imminently in Afghanistan from neighbouring Pakistan. Obama has vowed to increase US focus on the resurgent Taliban, including sending more troops and designating Holbrooke, who is helping the administration chart a new strategy to beat the insurgencies raging in both countries.
"They used grenades and AK-47s," Justice Minister Sarwa Danesh said of the attackers, speaking by mobile phone while he was briefly trapped inside the ministry with government employees.
A ministry worker said he scrambled out of a second-floor window to escape an advancing gunman. "I came out of my office to see what was going on, and I saw a man with an AK-47 shooting at every employee he saw in the hall," said ministry employee Nazir Mohammad, shaking as he spoke.
Of the eight attackers killed, three blew themselves up and five - all at the Justice Ministry - were shot dead, the Defence Ministry said.
At least 10 Justice Ministry employees and three security officers were killed, Interior Minister Muhammad Hanif Atmar told reporters.
Witnesses said terrified Justice Ministry employees jumped from the windows of the four-storey building, while others locked themselves in their offices as heavy exchanges of gunfire continued for several hours.
A minute earlier, two suicide attackers struck the Prisons Directorate in the north of the city. Six policemen were killed at the site and nearly 30 wounded.
In another attack claimed by the Taliban Wednesday, a French soldier and an Afghan interpreter were killed in an explosion and an ambush 30km south of Kabul, the French military said.
Also on Wednesday, two roadside bombs killed eight Afghan security guards in southern Helmand province, police said.
The top international military commander in Afghanistan, US General David McKiernan, said the Kabul assaults showed the "barbaric" face of the Taliban.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai also condemned the blasts and ordered swift action against the perpetrators.
The attacks showed the "enemies of the people of Afghanistan are always ready to ambush and derail normal daily life... and mercilessly martyr and injure innocent people," Karzai said in a statement.
He instructed security authorities to "carry out a thorough investigation of today's (Wednesday) incident and arrest those behind the terrorist attacks and bring them to justice," the statement said.