A coordinated Taliban assault on Kabul may have backfired on the insurgents after NATO chiefs applauded the way Afghan forces responded to the attack.

Although a gun battle followed suicide bomb explosions at several locations, it was left mainly to Afghan security to battle the militants.

Brigadier General Eric Tremblay of the ISAF said:
“I think that strategically we were expecting some kind of sensational attack. But in the end, it demonstrates, in the way the Afghan national security forces are dealing with the operation, their skills and the level of experience they have now to be able to deal with the event.”

But a senior British military chief said the Taliban had shown it could hit the capital in several places at once, raising new fears about Kabul’s security.

It also showed they were capable of causing mayhem at politically sensitive times – the first explosion went off as Afghanistan’s new cabinet was being sworn in.

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