Taliban claims responsibility for blasts in Kabul, saying it targeted intelligence agency and ministry buildings.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for several loud explosions in Afghanistan's capital, near Kabul's embassy district, with gunfire heard after one of the blasts near the US embassy.

Atleast four people have been wounded in one of the assaults by five Taliban attackers, according to officials in Kabul.

"The primary targets of the attackers are the intelligence agency building and a ministry," Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Taliban, told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday by phone from an undisclosed location.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters in Kabul was one of the targets in the ongoing Taliban attack in the centre of the city, a Western military source told the AFP new agency .

"ISAF HQ is under attack at the moment," the source said. An ISAF spokesman would not confirm the headquarters was a target.

Several Taliban attackers armed with rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s and suicide vests were taking part in the attack, Mujahid added.

He said he could not comment on how many attackers there were while the operation was going on.

Mohammad Zahir, head of Kabul's Crime Investigation Unit, said :"There has been an explosion and gunfire, there are several armed attackers in Abdul Haq Square.

"There could be suicide bombers but it is unclear at the moment."

Al Jazeera's Abdullah Shahood, reporting from Kabul, said: "We have no official confirmations about the casualties but there is chaos around this part of Kabul where there is a lot of government installments and buildings."

Police and other security officials blocked roads around the US embassy and other diplomatic missions.

The attack in Kabul follows a huge truck bomb at a NATO base in central Afghanistan in which four Afghan civilians were killed and 77 US troops wounded, on the eve of the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Last month, Taliban attackers laid siege to the British Council, killing at least nine people during an
hours-long assault on the 92nd anniversary of Afghanistan's independence from British rule.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst level since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, with high levels of foreign troop deaths and record civilian casualties.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies