For eight-year-old Rasoul Khan, a cleaning job at a favoured weekend relaxation spot for Kabul’s wealthy was meant to help bring a better life in a country stricken by widespread poverty.

Heavily armed Taliban insurgents have killed 18 people – most of them civilians - in an attack on a lakeside hotel just north of Kabul.

Afghan police say Taliban suicide bombers have attacked a lakeside hotel north of Kabul, and that militants armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have taken hostages and are continuing to fight Afghan security forces there.