As many as 47 people have been killed in a series of attacks in Afghanistan.
The figure includes eight suicide attackers and four people killed by NATO forces.
At least 55 others are reported to have been injured.
28 people died in near-simultaneous attacks in the capital, Kabul, this morning.
At about 5.30am (Irish time) an armed suicide bomber tried to enter the Ministry of Education, near the Presidential Palace in Kabul. He was shot dead by police before he could detonate his device.
At about 5.34am five armed suicide bombers entered the Ministry of Justice, also close to the Presidential Palace, and shot dead two security guards.
A policeman shot dead one of the bombers who had entered the building, while the remaining four would-be bombers shot 10 civilians inside the building, before they were also shot by police.
The Taliban subsequently claimed responsibility for two more attacks in telephone calls to media, warning of several more in the Afghan capital.
And at about 5.35am, two suicide bombers tried to enter the Prison Department building in the north Kabul suburb of Khair Khana. One was killed by a policeman, the other shot dead by another policeman before detonating his device, killing seven policemen.
In Logar province, south of the capital, four Afghan soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle during an operation.
In a separate roadside bomb attack in Logar, one foreign soldier and his Afghan translator were killed.
Four civilians and one Taliban fighter were killed in NATO-led air strikes in another area of Logar.
And eight Afghan security guards were killed when two roadside bombs ripped through their vehicles almost simultaneously in southern Afghanistan.
