He appeared on television for a live address shortly after the incident, assuring the public that the incident was over and that some of the attackers had been caught.

"Fortunately Afghan security forces quickly surrounded them ... Some of them were captured," Karzai said.

"Everything is calm, rest assured," he said.

Taliban warning

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr said that the Taliban had warned that they would carry out some sort of operation to disrupt the ceremony.

"To them, this ceremony should not be taking place because they are against the government and the foreign forces," she said.

"They said the target was to give them a message that they are not safe. We have to point out that there was a very tight security around the venue of the military parade and [still] they managed to infiltrate."

The security breach comes only two months after an attack on the Serena hotel in the diplomatic area of Kabul, she said.

"There have been reports that the government has not been able to control even 30 per cent of the Afghan territory and now with this attack it is not clear how the Taliban managed to infiltrate the security guards of the president."

Expected attack

Prince Ali Seraj, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera that the attack should have been expected by the authorities in Afghanistan.

The Taliban had warned of an attack to disrupt the military ceremony  [AFP]

"When you have all the dignitaries and the president of the country and all the ministers and ambassadors gathered together at one place, such an attack should have been expected and I believe that the entire perimeter should have been fortified with police and security forces," he said.

 

"From what I heard from my people, attackers were in military uniform. It is difficult to distinguish one soldier from the other, if you are not acquainted with each other.

 

"A group of people dressed in military uniform can infiltrate any one of the operations and be able to do what they did. But I think tighter security and identification cards should have been in place on a day like this."

 

Seraj said that the attack on the event was designed to gain publicity, given that ambassadors, diplomats from the United Nations and Afghan ministers were in attendance.