The 18 hour siege of a building close to the Afghan Parliament, which saw heavy fighting between Taliban fighters and government troops in Kabul, has ended. Coordinated attacks also took place on seven other sites including foreign embassies, and NATO's headquarters.

Government officials have confirmed 36 gunmen and eight members of the Afghan security forces are dead. With another 65 people - including 25 civilians - injured some seriously.

The protected Parliament building is just near the building where the Taliban fighters were operating from. There are dead bodies throughout the remains of the building after heavy return fire. All of the insurgents are reported dead.

Shukria Bariklzai an Afghan Member of Parliament said although it took a while for the fighting to be stopped she was proud of the way Afghan forces responded to the situation.

"The member of parliament was really in a bad situation in the parliament house, in the parliament building, in our places. But in the meantime it is not only the case of us, you can see just metres away there is a school and there are civilians which was living there. But I am proud about my great brothers and their response and our security forces back (response) to the enemy of the country. Of course it takes very long which we are worried about it, but at the beginning we succeed and we got back our dignity."

Afghan officials said they have also arrested two would-be suicide bombers, who intended to kill the second vice-president. The Taliban have said the co-ordinated attacks were a response to recent claims by NATO officials that the insurgency was weak and is the start of what they called a 'spring offensive'.