Intelligence agents raid compound east of capital leaving seven dead after discovering militants were massing weapons
Afghan forces killed seven insurgents who were planning to attack Kabul in an early morning gun battle on Thursday just outside the capital, an official said.
Intelligence agents discovered that the insurgents were massing weapons at a compound east of the city and ambushed the men when they returned to the site around 1am to prepare for the attack, said intelligence agency spokesman Latifullah Mashal.
A gun battle broke out and five of the insurgents blew themselves up with explosives. Police shot and killed the remaining men a few hours after dawn, Mashal said.
The agents found three cars full of explosives and ammunition in the compound, along with rocket launchers and machine guns, Mashal said.
He said the agents believed the men were planning to attack three sections of Kabul – a neighbourhood near the parliament building, and areas downtown that house embassies and businesses.
No Afghan forces or civilians were killed in the fighting, Mashal said. "This was a really big plan. Thank God we were able to stop it," he said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid rejected the account, saying the Afghan forces had staged the fight as propaganda.
Separately, two Nato service members were killed in a bomb attack in the south of the country on Thursday, the international military coalition said. Nato did not provide the nationality of the dead or any details on the bomb blast.
The latest deaths makes six international service members killed in the first two days of August.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's military says the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan is scheduled to visit and hold discussions with the country's army chief.
The military statement says General John Allen's meeting on Thursday with General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani will partly focus on ways to improve co-ordination with forces on either side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
It is Allen's first visit since Pakistan ended its seven-month blockade of supplies for Nato troops in Afghanistan in early July.