47 dead in Afghan attacks: interior minister

KABUL: A total of 36 Taliban militants were killed as they mounted a wave of attacks across Afghanistan, Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi said Monday.

The attacks against government and foreign military and embassy targets in the capital and three neighbouring provinces ended after 17 hours early Monday when Afghan security forces stormed the last strongholds in Kabul.

Eight members of the Afghan security forces and three civilians also died, Mohammadi said.

About 40 members of the Afghan security forces and 25 civilians were injured, the minister said. One militant was captured in Jalalabad, he added.

The Kabul police department separately said a would-be suicide bomber was captured Monday in Kabul's Pul-i-Charkhi area, a neighbourhood housing several NATO military facilities. It said the attacker was targeting Kabul.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks launched on Sunday and said they marked the start of the insurgents' "spring offensive."

Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi told that about 40 civilians who were taken hostage in a building near the country's parliament on Sunday were freed overnight.

The assault on Kabul was the biggest coordinated attack on the capital in 10 years of war following the ouster of the Taliban in a US-led invasion in late 2001.