Storskaliga attacker mot hotell och ambassader i Kabul

Reuters said a number of MPs had joined the fight against insurgents, quoting Kandahar lawmaker Naeem Hameedzai Lalai as saying: "I'm the representative of my people and I have to defend them."

"These attacks are the beginning of the spring offensive and we had planned them for months," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters.

The Taliban said the main targets were the German and British embassies and the headquarters of Afghanistan's NATO-led force. Several Afghan members of parliament joined security forces repelling attackers from a roof near the parliament.

Taliban fighters also launched assaults in at least two provinces, a spokesman for the insurgents said.

The Taliban said in a statement three hours into the attack that "tens of fighters", armed with heavy and light weapons, and some wearing suicide-bomb vests, were involved.

The coordinated attack is bound to intensify concern in the run-up to the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.

The assault appeared to repeat the tactics of an attack t in Kabul last September when insurgents entered construction sites in several places to use them as positions for rocket and gun attacks.

Taliban spokesman Mujahid said it had been easy to bring fighters into the capital, and they had had inside help to move heavy weapons into place.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters that the assaults were in retaliation for the burning of copies of the Koran at a NATO base, the killing of 17 Afghan civilians for which a U.S. soldier has been charged as well as for videos apparently showing U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban.

Ett brittiskt ambassadfordon träffades av bomb i Afghanistans huvudstad Kabul på torsdagen.

De afghanska talibanerna, som störtades från makten av den USA-ledda koalitionens invasion 2001, har genomfört en våg av bombattentat i Kabul på senare tid.