THAT six gunmen, armed with explosives, AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, could lay siege to the most heavily fortified quarter of the most check-pointed city in Afghanistan has highlighted the fragility of the country's security apparatus and again raised questions about the handover of control to local forces.
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Fourteen people were killed when Taliban gunmen set off bombs and stormed a building in the diplomatic enclave of Wazir Akbar Khan.
The primary targets were Afghan ministry buildings and the government's intelligence base, but from their hideout in the unoccupied building, they were able to fire on the US embassy and the headquarters of NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
The Australian embassy is in the same neighbourhood, but was not fired upon. No Australian Defence Force personnel, or embassy staff, were caught up in the attacks.
In an apparently co-ordinated effort, bombs were set off elsewhere in the city, including outside a school and near parliament.
Yesterday morning local time, after resisting international and Afghan security forces for more than 19 hours, the last of the six Taliban insurgents was shot dead, and a truck full of explosives was seized before it could be detonated.
ISAF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings said the death toll included people killed in the main attack as well as in smaller attacks elsewhere.
''Nineteen [were] wounded, 14 killed, which includes three children,'' he said. ''We also have six [international troops] wounded in action since yesterday. Three of them were US, which happened during the main engagement …''
Kabul police chief General Mohammad Ayub Salangi said: ''All six insurgents in the building were gunned down and a truck loaded with explosives seized …''
But the attacks have rocked the Afghan capital. Fabrizio Foschini, of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said even keeping only Kabul safe would prove ''almost impossible''.
But NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that while the attack was an attempt to ''derail'' the planned handover of security to Afghan forces in 2014, transfer of control would proceed as planned.
US authorities said the Pakistan-based Haqqani network was probably behind the truck blast that hit a NATO base in Wardak at the weekend. Five people were killed and more than 100 injured.
