Taliban suicide bombers attack Kabul hotel

AT LEAST five suicide bombers attacked a major hotel frequented by Westerners in Afghanistan’s capital, a senior police officer said, with fighting continuing as police cleared the building.

Witnesses heard four blasts over the course of about two hours, with intermittent bursts of gunfire heard during the late-night attack on the Intercontinental Hotel, one of two main hotels used by foreigners in Kabul.

Mohammad Zahir, the head of the Kabul police crime unit, said three police officers had been wounded as they cleared the hotel on the city’s western outskirts.

The attack came the night before the start of a conference about the gradual transition of civil and military responsibility from foreign forces to Afghans.

The hotel was not one of the venues to be used by the conference or its delegates, an Afghan government official said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said several fighters from the Islamist group had attacked the hotel.

Mujahid, who spoke to Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location, said heavy casualties had been inflicted. The Taliban often exaggerate the number of casualties in attacks against Western and Afghan government targets.

One blast was heard at the start of the attack and then three more at least an hour later. Bursts of gunfire were heard over the same period and flares lit up the sky over the hotel.

Police fired tracer rounds into the air as other officers moved through the hotel. Power was cut in the hotel in the hotel and in surrounding areas after the attack.

A police source said that a wedding party was under way when the attack happened.