KABUL �" Taliban gunmen launched a brazen assault on targets in the center of Kabul on Monday, with suicide bombers blowing themselves up at several locations and heavily armed militants fighting a pitched battle in a shopping centre. The insurgents failed in an apparent attempt to seize government buildings, but demonstrated their ability to cause mayhem at a time when US President Barack Obama is trying to rally support for an expanded military mission to fight them. It was the worst attack on the city in nearly a year. Gunfire and loud explosions shook the city and a huge column of smoke towered over its center, pouring out of the shopping center where gunmen battled security forces for hours. After more than four hours of gunbattles, President Hamid Karzai said in a statement that "the security situation is under control and order has once again been restored." The Taliban said 20 of their fighters were involved in the attacks, which they said targeted the presidential palace, justice ministry, ministry of mines and a presidential administrative building, all clustered in the centre of town. When the attacks began outside Karzai's sprawling palace compound, he was inside swearing in new members of his cabinet. "As we were conducting the ceremony of swearing in, a terrorist attack in a part of Kabul close to the presidential palace is going on. This is just one of the dangers," Karzai told ministers. "The danger that could harm Afghanistan is sowing national discord among Afghans." US envoy to the region Richard Holbrooke, who had left Kabul hours earlier for New Delhi, said: "The people who are doing this certainly will not survive the attack nor will they succeed, but we can expect this sort of a thing on a regular basis. That is who the Taliban are." The attacks were a slap in the face for an initiative to lure Taliban fighters to lay down their arms, which Karzai plans to announce at an international conference in London this month. The initiative is a key part of Obama's new strategy, which will also see 30,000 extra troops sent to turn the tide against a mounting insurgency. A Reuters correspondent at the scene of the blazing shopping center siege saw the body of a shopkeeper carried out. People wept over the body as gunshots could be heard ringing out.
