Afghan police: 7 killed in attack on Kabul hotel
KABUL, Afghanistan
Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said six suicide
bombers attacked the Inter-Continental hotel frequented by Afghan
officials and foreign visitors. He said two were killed by hotel
guards at the beginning of the attack and four others either blew
themselves up or were killed in the airstrike or by Afghan security
forces.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the rare, nighttime
attack in the capital -- an apparent attempt to show that they
remain potent despite heavy pressure from coalition and Afghan
security forces.
The attackers were heavily armed with machine guns,
anti-aircraft weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and
grenade launchers, the Afghan officials said. Afghan police rushed
to the scene and firefights broke out. They battled for hours with
gunmen who took up positions on the roof.
Some Afghan provincial officials were among the 60 to 70 guests
staying at the hotel.
Abdul Zahir Faizada, who is head of the local council in Herat
province in western Afghanistan, was staying at the hotel. He
planned to attend a conference in Kabul on Wednesday to discuss
plans for Afghan security forces to take the lead for securing an
increasing number of areas of the country between now and 2014 when
international forces are expected to move out of combat roles.
Afghans across the country were in the city to attend.
"We were locked in a room. Everybody was shooting and firing,"
said Faizada who was staying at the hotel with the mayor of Herat
city and other officials from the province. "I heard a lot of
shooting."
Deputy police chief in Kabul, Daoud Amin, said seven people died
in the attack and eight other people -- two policemen and six
civilians -- were wounded. The attackers are not counted in that
death toll.
Nazar Ali Wahedi, chief of intelligence for Helmand province in
the south, called the assailants "the enemy of stability and
peace" in Afghanistan.
Wahedi, too, was in town to attend Wednesday's transition
conference, which was being held at a government building in the
capital.
"Our room was hit by several bullets," Wahedi said. "We spent
the whole night in our room."
The attack began around 10:30 p.m. local time Tuesday and ended
around 3 a.m. Wednesday.
U.S. Army Maj. Jason Waggoner, a spokesman for the U.S.-led
coalition fighting in Afghanistan, said the helicopters fired on
the roof where militants had taken up positions. He said they
killed three gunmen and that Afghan security forces clearing the
hotel worked their way up to the roof and engaged the remaining
insurgents.
As the helicopters attacked and Afghan security forces moved in,
four massive explosions rocked the hotel. Officials at the scene
said the blasts occurred when security forces either fired on
suicide bombers or they blew themselves up.
After the gunmen were killed, the hotel lights that had been
blacked out during the attack came back on. Afghan security
vehicles and ambulances were removing the dead and wounded from the
area.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid quickly claimed
responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to the AP, then
later issued a statement claiming that Taliban attackers killed
guards at a gate and entered the hotel.
"One of our fighters called on a mobile phone and said: 'We
have gotten onto all the hotel floors and the attack is going
according to the plan. We have killed and wounded 50 foreign and
local enemies. We are in the corridors of the hotel now taking
guests out of their rooms -- mostly foreigners. We broke down the
doors and took them out one by one."'
The Taliban often exaggerate casualties from their attacks. The
statement did not disclose the number of attackers, but only said
one suicide bomber had died.
A few hours into the clashes, an Afghan National Army commando
unit arrived at the scene.
Initially, the U.S.-led military coalition said the Afghan
Ministry of Interior had not requested any assistance from foreign
forces. But later, the NATO helicopters arrived on the scene at the
hotel on a hill overlooking the capital.
Guests inside the hotel said they heard gunfire echoing
throughout the heavily guarded building.
Jawid, a guest at the hotel, said he jumped out a one-story
window to flee the shooting.
"I was running with my family," he said. "There was shooting.
The restaurant was full with guests."
The attack occurred nearly a week after President Barack Obama
announced he was withdrawing 33,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan
and would end the American combat role by the end of 2014.
Before the attack began on Tuesday, officials from the U.S.,
Pakistan and Afghanistan met in the capital to discuss prospects
for making peace with Taliban insurgents to end the nearly
decade-long war.
"The fact that we are discussing reconciliation in great detail
is success and progress, but challenges remain and we are reminded
of that on an almost daily basis by violence," Jawed Ludin,
Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister, said at a news conference.
"The important thing is that we act and that we act urgently and
try to do what we can to put an end to violence."
The Inter-Continental -- known widely as the "Inter-Con" --
opened in the late 1960s, and was the nation's first international
luxury hotel. It has at least 200 rooms and was once part of an
international chain. But when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in
1979, the hotel was left to fend for itself.
It was used by Western journalists during the U.S.-led invasion
of Afghanistan in 2001.
On Nov. 23, 2003, a rocket exploded nearby, shattering windows
but causing no casualties.
Twenty-two rockets hit the Inter-Con between 1992 and 1996, when
factional fighting convulsed Kabul under the government of
Burhanuddin Rabbani. All the windows were broken, water mains were
damaged and the outside structure pockmarked. Some, but not all, of
the damage was repaired during Taliban rule.
Attacks in the Afghan capital have been relatively rare,
although violence has increased since the May 2 killing of Osama
bin Laden in a U.S. raid in Pakistan and the start of the Taliban's
annual spring offensive.
On June 18, insurgents wearing Afghan army uniforms stormed a
police station near the presidential palace and opened fire on
officers, killing nine.
Late last month, a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan police
uniform infiltrated the main Afghan military hospital, killing six
medical students. A month before that, a suicide attacker in an
army uniform sneaked past security at the Afghan Defense Ministry,
killing three people.
Other hotels in the capital have also been targeted.
In January 2008, militants stormed Kabul's most popular luxury
hotel, the Serena, hunting down Westerners who cowered in a gym
during a coordinated assault that killed eight people. An American,
a Norwegian journalist and a Philippine woman were among the dead.
A suicide car bomber in December 2009, struck near the home of a
former Afghan vice president and a hotel frequented by Westerners,
killing eight people and wounding nearly 40 in a neighborhood
considered one of Kabul's safest.
And in February 2010, insurgents struck two residential hotels
in the heart of Kabul, killing 20 people including seven Indians, a
French filmmaker and an Italian diplomat.