“The Taliban were shooting at the apartments from a car repair market, and they were also climbing on the roofs around the apartments and shooting,” Mr. Abdulrahimzai said. A helicopter took off from the Pakistani embassy about half an hour after the attack began, he added.
After a brief lull in the gunfire, Taliban security forces entered the building and heavy gunfire erupted, according to Mr. Abdulrahimzai. Taliban security forces apprehended one suspect, Mr. Zadran, the police spokesman, said.
No group has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, which was condemned by Taliban officials.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan “will not allow any malicious actors to pose a threat to the security of diplomatic missions in Kabul,” a spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, said on Twitter. “Our security will conduct a serious investigation, identify perpetrators & bring them to justice.”
In an interview, the Pakistani state minister for foreign affairs, Hina Rabbani Khar, said that Pakistani authorities have called on the Taliban to “take all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of our personnel and diplomatic premises.” Ms. Khar met with Taliban officials in Kabul on Tuesday to discuss tensions over violence at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The attack on the Pakistani embassy added to increasing tensions between the new Taliban government and neighboring Pakistan. For months, Pakistani officials have claimed that newly emboldened militants have launched more frequent attacks in Pakistan from Afghan soil since the Taliban seized power last year.
Those strains were heightened earlier this week when Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, responsible for some of Pakistan’s deadliest recent terrorist attacks, announced that it would no longer abide by a cease-fire with the Pakistani government. A day later, the group carried out a suicide bombing by militants in southwest Pakistan that killed four people and injured more than 30.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan, which had been facilitating peace talks between the militants and the Pakistani government since late last year, has denied sheltering militants on Afghan soil.
Safiullah Padshah contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, Najim Rahim from San Francisco and Salman Masood from Islamabad.
