At dawn, the first #39; kamikaze #39, detonated his car bomb outside the hotel Aria, while two others, equipped with explosive-laden jackets, entered a neighboring hotel, the Park Residence, said the police chief Kabul, General Abdul Rahman Rahman.

Then, as customers and staff of the Residence Park escaped through the windows, according to AFP found, police stormed the building by assault. One suicide bomber detonated his bomb in a room, killing three policemen and the second held out for a while, before killing, Rahman said.

Some witnesses said they heard at least two other explosions and shootings that were then in the area. “The toll is 16 dead, including an Italian and three Afghan police,” Bashary told AFP. The previous balance was 17 dead. A statement by Afghan President Hamid karzia confirmed the balance of 16 dead, including four Indian nationals and one Italian.

In Paris, a Foreign Ministry statement said that another dead is a Frenchman, who was passing through Kabul. Friday is a holiday in Afghanistan and the downtown is poorly animated that when the explosion occurred shortly after dawn.

The Green Zone, the diplomatic quarter where personalities and foreigners also live in the heart of Kabul, was cordoned off immediately after the attack and police over the loudspeaker asking residents not to leave their homes.

“We demand” the attack, said Zabihulah Mujahed, a spokesman for the Islamist insurgents in AFP by telephone. “Eight of our fighters carried out the attack, one detonated his car bomb in front of a hotel, two other bombs also activated, the others are present at the scene,” he said.

In Brussels, NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen condemned the bombing and the Taliban. “Once again, killing innocent people, both Afghan and foreigners,” he said.

The Taliban insurgency has grown significantly and has spread to most of the country in recent years, and its members acting more and more frequently in Kabul, command attacks or suicide bombings.

The last was recorded on 18 January when heavily armed insurgents and suicide bombers attacked a shopping mall in heart of the capital, killing five people. Friday”s attack occurs when some 15,000 international troops and Afghan forces involved from 13 days ago a major offensive against a Taliban stronghold in southern Helmand province have seized virtual control of the insurgents instead.

The Afghan flag was raised on Thursday Marjah, a town that was the main objective of the operation Mushtarak (Together, in Dari) in Taliban hands for two years, but sporadic fighting and mine curbed a little progress in the international forces in the vicinity.

To reverse the course of the war, U.S. President Barack Obama, whose troops make up two thirds of the international forces, mainly to orders NATO announced in December sending 30,000 U.S. troops by the summer, plus some 10,000 troops from other NATO countries.

Despite the presence of 121,000 troops international forces in Afghanistan, the actions of guerrilla and terrorist attacks decimated the Taliban increasingly foreign troops. After 520 deaths in 2009, by far the deadliest year of the eight war, nearly 100 soldiers from international forces have died in Afghanistan during the first two months of 2010. Aganist International troops invaded in late 2001 to oust the Taliban.