(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Afghan security forces overcame Taliban insurgents attacking a guest house for international aid workers in Afghanistan's capital yesterday and were still fighting gunmen inside former US and British base Camp Bastion.
Foreign troops left the camp in the south of Afghanistan just a few weeks ago.
Taliban attacks are intensifying as the US-led coalition prepares to withdraw most of its soldiers by the end of 2014.
On December 31, the US-led Nato combat mission in Afghanistan will end and be replaced by a follow-on mission supporting the Afghan army and police, who have taken over responsibility for thwarting the Taliban.
Nato troop numbers, which peaked at 130,000 in 2010, will fall to about 12,500 next year, with fears growing that the declining international presence is already fuelling the Islamist insurgency.
The latest rise in violence has undermined Nato claims that Afghanistan is a stable state as troops pull out.
"It is an ongoing terrorist attack against an office used by foreigners," Najib Danish, the interior ministry deputy spokesman, said, giving no further details about the targeted building.
At least two civilians were killed in the second attack in three days on expatriate aid workers' housing in Kabul. One Taliban fighter was killed when his suicide vest exploded and the other two attackers were shot, Qadam Shah Shaheem, commander of the Afghan army's 111 Military Corps Kabul, said.
Eight people, including two foreigners, were rescued from the building in Kabul's western Karte Seh district during the four-hour gunbattle.
Two bodies were found on the lower floors, but their identities were not known, Shaheem said.
Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai said in a statement that one was Afghan and one was a foreigner, but he did not give the nationality.
The Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility, with a spokesman saying in a statement that their fighters had targeted a Christian organisation seeking to convert Muslims. Authorities did not know the name of the aid organisation.
On Thursday, Taliban gunmen had stormed a guest house in Kabul's diplomatic quarter. Only the attackers were killed.
In southern Afghanistan, soldiers were still fighting Taliban gunmen inside Camp Bastion, a major southern base handed over to Afghans by the British and US militaries in October.
A few dozen Taliban fighters with automatic weapons and suicide vests had attacked the base in Helmand province on Thursday, General Ayatullah Khan, commander of the army regiment in the area, said.
"Some managed to get inside, took position, and started the gunfight," he said, noting that the insurgents appeared to be holed up in one of the smaller camps within Camp Bastion.
At least five soldiers and 26 insurgents were killed on Friday at the base, Omar Zwak, a spokesman for Helmand's governor, said.
The Taliban, who were ousted from power by the US-led coalition in 2001, claimed that hundreds had been killed in the attack. The insurgents routinely inflate casualty figures.
President Ashraf Ghani, who came to power in September, has vowed to bring peace to Afghanistan after decades of conflict, saying he is open to talks with the Taliban, who ruled Kabul from 1996 to 2001.
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