Taliban launches fresh wave of attacks

The Taliban launched a series of coordinated attacks in Afghanistan Sunday, targeting Western embassies and Afghanistan government facilities with suicide bombers and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said there were attacks concentrated in three areas in Kabul as well as a few outside provinces.

The attacks included the U.S., German and British embassies, Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, an ISAF spokesman, said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday.

CNN reported as many as seven locations were targeted, including the district that includes the embassies and the presidential palace.

The Taliban said in a statement that the attacks were the start of its spring offensive.

"It is also a message to those foreign commanders who claim that the Taliban have lost their momentum," the Taliban said, according to the New York Times. "We have just showed that we are here and we can stage an attack whenever we want.”

ISAF said that two suicide attackers were captured before they could detonate their explosives. An ISAF statement said Afghan Crisis Response Units and the Afghan police and army responded to the attacks, and not ISAF's quick reaction forces. ISAF characterized the attacks as "largely ineffective."

Cummings emphasized the Afghan forces responding to the attack when speaking on CNN, saying that "the good news out of this today is how the Afghan national security forces responded to today's attacks here in Kabul."

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