KABUL: Taleban insurgents wearing burqas unleashed rockets and gunfire on the Afghan election commission’s headquarters in Kabul on Saturday, in the latest major assault on the city one week before polling day.

Six hours after the attack began, security forces gunned down the last of the five gunmen who had occupied a nearby building and targeted the heavily-fortified election offices.

“There were five attackers, all of them used burqas as a disguise. They have all been killed,” Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Seddiqi told AFP. “Two members of special police units were slightly injured.”

Independent Election Commission (IEC) spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said that its employees were unharmed after many hid for hours in reinforced safe-rooms.

The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack via a recognized Twitter account.

Kabul airport, which is in the same eastern area of the city, was closed for several hours, with planes diverting to Karachi or returning to Delhi as well as other destinations.

“I heard several explosions, and I saw insurgents armed with heavy and light weapons taking up positions in a private building, and they started firing,” one local driver who declined to give his name told AFP.

As tensions rise in Kabul, some restaurants and shops popular with foreigners have shut for the election period due to the risk of attack.

The militant group has vowed to disrupt the vote on April 5, urging their fighters to attack polling staff, voters and security forces in the run-up to polling day.

Male militants have previously used the all-enveloping burqa to disguise themselves and evade security checks in Afghanistan, including in a 2012 attack when four French troops were killed.

The election to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai, barred constitutionally from seeking a third term, will be Afghanistan’s first-ever democratic handover of power.