Meanwhile in Afghanistan

[H]eavy machine-gun fire [...] echoed around the Afghan parliament, target of perhaps the most ambitious Taliban attacks on Kabul in more than a decade.

[...]

As reports multiplied of gunfire and explosions proliferating across the city, residents scrambled to work out what was going on. An attack on an aviation college; rockets fired at embassy compounds; assaults on government buildings.

[...]

Around two dozen fighters had launched a "spring offensive" that the Taliban said was months in the planning. Despite heavy fortifications around Kabul's diplomatic district their rockets hit the German and Japanese embassies and the gate of a British residence, causing damage but no injuries.

[...]

The ambitious, heavily guarded targets, and the co-ordination of multiple blatant attacks in Kabul and across another swath of the country were a pointed reminder of the insurgency's reach.

[...]

The attacks were confronted almost entirely by Afghan police and soldiers, who have needed heavy support handling past attacks, but on Sunday had assistance only from a few permanent Norwegian mentors. Their efforts were hailed by Nato and the Afghan government.

"I am enormously proud of how quickly Afghan security forces responded to today's attacks in Kabul," said General John Allen, the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan. He said offers of foreign help had been declined so far, despite exchanges of gunfire on Sunday night.

  UK Guardian

Mission accomplished.