Attacks on Kabul’s diplomatic quarter

At least six people were killed in a Taliban siege near the Spanish embassy in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter that ended on Saturday, the latest insurgent attack in the highly fortified area.

Below are some of the most high-profile attacks on embassies, the UN and NATO properties in and around the diplomatic quarter since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

– July 7, 2008: A suicide attack carried out by a car bomber on the Indian embassy kills at least 60 people, including two senior diplomats and two guards.

– October 8, 2009: The Indian embassy is targeted again, leaving 17 dead.

– August 19, 2011: The Taliban claims a suicide attack against the British Council, a cultural organisation part-funded by London, that kills nine on the 92nd anniversary of Afghanistan’s independence from Britain.

– September 13-14, 2011: At least 15 people are killed in a brazen Taliban attack targeting the US embassy and NATO headquarters, which raged for 19 hours in a hail of rockets, grenades and suicide blasts. Former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading efforts to seek peace with the Taliban, is assassinated at his home in the area a week later.

– February 25, 2012: Two US military advisors are shot dead in the interior ministry in Kabul, as the country is convulsed with protests over the burning of Korans at an American base.

– September 8, 2012: A teenage suicide bomber strikes outside NATO headquarters in Kabul killing six young people, including child hawkers, as Afghanistan marks a public holiday.

– November 27, 2014: A suicide bomber rams his explosives-packed car into a British embassy vehicle, killing one Briton and five Afghans. The attack is followed by a violent explosion and gunfire in a neighbourhood close to the diplomatic quarter.

– December 11, 2014: A suicide bomber blows himself up near a crowd attending a play at a French cultural centre, in the complex of the French-run Esteqlal high school, killing at least two people and injuring more than 20.

– January 5, 2015: An attack on the European Union police vehicle kills one person and injures six Afghan civilians just days after the end of the NATO combat mission.