Afghan forces put down attack on HQs

KABUL

NATO soldiers leave the site of a Taliban attack in Kabul. REUTERS photo

Afghan forces put down an early morning attack by Taliban insurgents on the presidential palace and nearby buildings in central Kabul June 25, with police saying all the assailants had been killed after a 90-minute gunfight.

The the attack began early in the morning when at least one man opened fire with an automatic rifle at a gate to the palace in the central Shash Darak district.

Roadside bomb kills 11

Kabul police chief, General Ayoub Salangi, told Reuters all the attackers had been killed. An Afghan official said five assailants had been killed along with two Afghan guards. The Defense Ministry and the Ariana Hotel, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s Afghan station, were also targeted. In a separate attack, 11 members of a family were killed when a minibus has hit a bomb buried in the road in the southern province of Kandahar, according to Afghan officials.

Two other men were also wounded, according to the Associated Press.