Six die in Kabul hotel attack

MILITANTS with suicide vests, grenades and AK-47 rifles attacked Kabul’s most popular luxury hotel yesterday, killing at least six people in a co-ordinated assault rarely seen in the Afghan capital, witnesses and a Taliban spokesman said.

It appeared to be the first direct attack on a hotel in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

The assault came on a night the Norwegian embassy was holding a meeting at the Serena Hotel. An American inside said she saw a body she believed to be dead and pools of blood in the lobby. Hotel employees reported six dead. The American said three foreigners were wounded.