KABUL (AFP) – Taliban launched suicide bomb and gun attacks Wednesday on three Afghan government buildings, killing at least 26 people, in one of the most daring assaults on the capital to date.

The defense ministry said eight suicide attackers also died in the near-simultaneous strikes on the prisons directorate, and justice and education ministries -- the deadliest insurgent attacks in Afghanistan so far this year.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told AFP in a telephone call that 16 suicide attackers had entered the Afghan capital and would carry out a wave of strikes, as the violence sowed panic across the city.
“So far we have registered 26 people killed and 55 wounded,” health ministry spokesman Abdullah Fahim said by mid-afternoon. Most were civilians, he said.
Of the eight attackers killed, three managed to blow themselves up and five were shot dead, officials said.
Witnesses of the attack on the justice ministry, which is close to the presidential palace in the heart of the capital, said several gunmen burst into the building and opened fire on security guards.
Some of the gunmen managed to run up several floors of the building, shooting as they went, they said.
Terrified ministry employees jumped from the windows of the four-storey building, while others locked themselves in their offices as heavy exchanges of gunfire continued for several hours, witnesses said.
Five would-be suicide attackers were killed inside the building, the defense ministry said. A witness said at least one was strapped with explosives.
“I saw several of them running into the ministry after a gunfight with police guards at the entrance, right next to the kitchen,” said a cook, Juma Khan.
“One of them was shot by the security guards. Three of my colleagues were martyred. I saw their bodies,” he said, describing the three as a cleaner, a cook and a painter.
As the dramatic assault unfolded, two suicide attackers also struck the prisons directorate in the north of the city, witnesses and officials said.
“I first heard gun shots,” a resident of a nearby house, Mia Agha, told AFP.
“I saw a guy around 18 or 20 years old who was hiding behind this vehicle and police were firing at him. He had a pistol and was firing back.
“At one point he pulled a wire from his sleeve and then a blast took place with huge fire and thick smoke. After some minutes a second blast took place at the entrance to the building.”
Agha said he saw many dead and wounded. The interior ministry media office said “four to five” civilians were killed there as well as a policeman.
The area was splashed with blood and body parts, the reporter said.
Another suicide attacker was shot dead in front of the education ministry, an interior ministry official told AFP. “His explosives detonated but it has not caused casualties,” an interior ministry official said.
The Taliban spokesman, Mujahid, told AFP that some of the suicide attackers dispatched to the city were awaiting orders.
“The attack at the ministry of justice and the directorate of prisons was revenge for mistreatment of Taliban prisoners,” he said.
The attacks caused widespread panic with people from the provinces calling residents to find out what had happened, witnesses said. Security groups warned people to avoid moving about in the city.
The top international military commander in Afghanistan, U.S. General David McKiernan, said the assaults showed the “barbaric” face of the Taliban.
The attacks came as new U.S. President Barack Obama considers a plan to double the number of U.S. troops fighting against a widening Taliban-led insurgency which now stands at about 37,000.
Richard Holbrooke, the new U.S. envoy to the region, was in Pakistan on Wednesday as part of efforts to conduct a comprehensive U.S. policy review as Washington hopes to turn around the battle against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.