KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Suicide bombers and gunmen carried out a coordinated attack on the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters Tuesday in Kabul, Afghanistan, officials said.
The BBC reported Kabul's police chief said six people had died and 16 were injured in the fighting, which was still ongoing with at least one gunman remaining alive in an unfinished high-rise building overlooking the city's diplomatic quarter.
The BBC said NATO and U.S. Embassy officials said nor staff members were among the casualties.
"We appreciate the response of the Afghan National Security Forces whose operations stopped the attack on the embassy compound," the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.
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Police said four insurgents had been killed. It wasn't clear if they were in addition to the six reported dead by the police chief. The attackers were traveling in a minivan and were wearing burqas, police said.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Kerri S. Hannan told The Washington Post embassy personnel were ordered to take cover.
U.S. Marines were seen on the roof of the embassy, the BBC reported.
At least 10 explosions and automatic weapons fire were reported, The New York Times said. One rocket apparently hit a private school minibus and witnesses reported seeing children being carried away bleeding and perhaps unconscious, the Times said.
Iran's Press TV reported its office in Kabul was struck and one person was injured.
"We do not know about the number of casualties … . All Afghan forces are taking position near the U.S. Embassy, and our office is near the U.S. office," a Press TV correspondent in Kabul said.
"One of our colleagues has been injured and … our colleagues tell us that our neighbor offices have been hit by rockets."
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told Press TV the group's fighters were targeting "the U.S. Embassy, governmental organizations and other foreign organizations."
"They are under the fire of our heavy and small arms," he told the Post in a telephone interview.
The attack was launched from the high-rise under construction near the U.S. Embassy compound and the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force.
"We don't know how many suicide bombers are in the building," Col. Abdul Zahir, a member of the Kabul police criminal investigative division, told the Times. "They're shooting at the embassy. We're still in fighting position. We can't say anything."
Kabul residents said several rockets struck Wazir Akbar Khan, an upscale neighborhood where some embassies and non-governmental organizations are based.
Hamid M. Khan, a rule of law adviser with the U.S. Institute of Peace, said he and colleagues were in a safe room in their compound.
"The entire staff is hunkered down," he said via his smartphone. "We're very tense and alarmed by how close the rocket attacks and gunshots keep coming."
A journalist with the Afghan Tolo News channel said via Twitter a rocket struck the network's building. A BBC correspondent posted on Twitter he heard rockets landing near his location.
The BBC said the attack began with several rockets being fired, followed by two suicide bombers detonating their explosives outside a police station. A third bomber was killed trying to enter the airport. A jail also was targeted.
Six armed men entered the unfinished high-rise building overlooking the embassy district, and used it to fire on the NATO compound and U.S. Embassy, the BBC said.
The attack occurred less than two months after Afghan forces assumed responsibility for security in the capital.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen condemned the attack.
"We have confidence in the Afghan authorities' ability to deal with this situation," Rasmussen said in Brussels. "Transition is on track and it will continue."
